Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL

HOLY TRINITY, WEST HAMPSTEAD BILL

SAINT SAVIOUR, PADDINGTON BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

BRITISH RAILWAYS (MERSEY RAILWAY EXTENSIONS) BILL

UNIVERSITY OF WALES INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Thursday, 9th May, at Seven o'clock.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Disabled Persons (Motor Vehicles)

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Health what steps he has taken to assist the mobility of the disabled passenger group.

Mr. Fortsecue: asked the Minister of Health what action he now intends to take in order to provide vehicles for those too severely disabled to drive, and thus in need of the services of a second person as driver.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): With the exception of certain disabled war pensioners, invalid vehicles are provided at Exchequer expense only to those who can with safety drive the vehicle themselves. I have no plans for changing the present policy in this respect.

Mr. Marten: Does the Minister realise that these people, many of whom suffer from such diseases as muscular dystrophy, are unable to use any public transport and are less well treated than disabled drivers? We all recognise the problems involved, but should not the Minister try to set up a study in depth to ascertain the size of the problem and the difficulties facing these people so that we understand better what we are talking about when we refer to the disabled passenger group?

Mr. Robinson: I can give the hon. Gentleman some idea of the size of the problem, because we have made estimates. The capital cost of providing cars to those eligible for a vehicle but unable to drive themselves is estimated at about £25 million. In addition, there would be annual maintenance costs of about £6½ million.

Mr. Fortescue: Are not there more anomalies in connection with this group than with any other, because they are provided with transport when their illness is at a comparatively mild stage, but when they get worse and thus need more help the help is taken from them?

Mr. Robinson: I would not say that this problem is without its anomalies. I have no power at present to enable additional groups of the disabled to be provided with cars. The Health Services and Public Health Bill will provide those powers, but I would not want to raise any false hopes at the moment that any wide extension of the provision is likely in present economic circumstances.

Mr. Edynfed Hudson Davies: Is my right hon. Friend aware that under the present system for the assistance of disabled drivers great hazard is caused by the fact that the cars supplied have only one passenger door and that, if these vehicles overturn, which they are particularly prone to do, on to the nearside the passenger is trapped and, moreover,


the petrol tank is then directly above the hot engine?

Mr. Robinson: I would not accept all that my hon. Friend says, but in any event I do not think that it arises out of the Question. If he would care to table a Question, I will do my best to answer it.

Mr. Dean: Will not the Minister agree to have another look at this? Does he accept that there is much evidence to suggest that the greater the need for transport facilities the less can be provided under present regulations?

Mr. Robinson: We have done a study of this. A certain amount of research has been done into the classes to whom it might be possible to make an extension when economic circumstances permit. This is one deserving group. It is not the only one.

Mr. Tinn: Will not my right hon. Friend try to give us grounds for a little more optimism about what will happen when economic circumstances improve? Will he bear in mind the very real difficulty facing disabled drivers in singleseat vehicles in the event of breakdown or other mishaps, which might deter them from even applying for a vehicle?

Mr. Robinson: These matters are always being studied. We are always doing our best to improve the safety of these vehicles, which I do not accept are unsafe at present. Of course I would like to extend the eligibility for vehicles, but we must wait to see how the economic situation turns out.

Prescription Charges

Dr. David Kerr: asked the Minister of Health what provision he is planning for the exemption from paying prescription charges of patients suffering from chronic schizophrenia and other psychoses.

Mr. Fisher: asked the Minister of Health whether those suffering from cancer will be exempt from prescription charges.

Mr. Moonman: asked the Minister of Health to what extent his definition of the chronic sick for the purpose of reimbursing prescription charges will include the psychiatric patients whose

health depends upon long-term, possibly permanent medication and who, without medicine would soon become chronic sick.

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health why he has not designated as a chronic sick person exempt from prescription charges one who has suffered from a coronary thrombosis.

Mr. K. Robinson: For the reasons explained in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Victor Yates) on 21st March, it is not possible to include these conditions as such within the definition of chronic sickness for exemption purposes. Patients suffering from them may qualify for exemption otherwise than as chronic sick or because they are also suffering from one of the specific conditions listed in my earlier reply.—[Vol. 761, c. 143–5.]

Dr. Kerr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we want to be kind to him but find it very difficult when he gives replies like that? Is he not aware that the condition of chronic schizophrenia occurs considerably more frequently in the community and that if such people are to be kept fit to remain in the community they must take their drugs? Will he accept that the imposition of a charge for this treatment is an added disincentive to them to take the treatment they need in order to remain viable human beings?

Mr. Robinson: I explained in my earlier Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood that we had found it necessary to define objectively categories in which are to be found patients certain to need continuous medication for long periods, and which admit of no discretion as to identification of individuals. This was the result of the attitude of the medical profession, which I fully understand, for otherwise doctors would have been put in an impossible position vis-á-vis their patients in exercising discretion as to which individual was or was not chronically sick.

Mr. Fisher: Does not the Minister agree that cancer really is a chronic disease, the most serious of all chronic diseases, and that many people go home for quite long periods between operations, during which time they must have strong analgesics and other drugs? Therefore,


they should be included in the list of exemptions?

Mr. Robinson: Different considerations arise with cancer patients. Of course, this matter was discussed with the medical profession. I had to provide the best answer I could within the limitations understandably laid down by the doctors, without whose co-operation no definition of chronically sick is possible.

Mr. Moonman: As the success rate in these mental cases is likely to be affected by the uncertainty in the provision of drugs, will my right hon. Friend reconsider his decision so that some assistance may be given on this the most grave of the implications associated with the prescription charges?

Mr. Robinson: I do not believe that the imposition of this charge will have any serious disincentive effect on schizophrenic patients taking their medication.

Mr. Pavitt: Will my right hon. Friend withdraw the claim that he is giving exemption to the chronic sick, since it is quite obvious that in the four cases we have discussed he has not? Will he bear in mind that although he has adhered to what the doctors want, he has landed a good deal of trouble on the pharmacists?

Mr. Robinson: I do not think that the latter part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question arises from the Question on the Order Paper. Perhaps I should remind the House of what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on 16th January. He said that I would enter into discussions with the medical profession with a view to introducing as soon as possible a system of exemptions. This is what I have done. I have produced the best system the circumstances permit.

Lord Balniel: What arrangements is the Minister making for the exemption of the chronically sick from the payment of a prescription charge where in the opinion of a doctor it is undesirable, as it is in many of these cases, that the patient should know that he is suffering from chronic illness?

Mr. Robinson: The certificate the doctor signs goes direct from his surgery to the executive council. The patient

will have to make an application, but he will not know what the doctor signs.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Does not my right hon. Friend feel that it would be better not to introduce prescription charges at all? Instead, he is drawing up a list of exemptions which could become exhaustive.

Mr. Robinson: No, Sir. The general arguments for the introduction of prescription charges have been discussed in the House and will no doubt be discussed again when the regulations are introduced.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in many cases of chronic illness such as schizophrenia or cancer it is against the patient's interests that he should know that he has a chronic illness? For this reason no system of exemptions will operate fairly with chronic illnesses of this kind.

Mr. Robinson: That merely illustrates one of the difficulties, but I thought that it was the wish of the House that we should go as far as possible in relieving those who are chronically sick from the effects of the introduction of charges. As I also explained in my earlier reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood, I recognised that this necessarily limited categorisation would leave others who require numerous prescriptions, and expressed the hope that in due course I should be able to help them by enabling them to obtain an exemption card on the payment of a fee representing the cost of perhaps two prescriptions a month.

Dr. Kerr: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I propose to raise the matter on the Adjournment as soon as possible.

Mrs. Knight: asked the Minister of Health how many people he now estimates will be eligible for exemption from prescription charges.

Mr. K. Robinson: Some 20 million in England and Wales.

Mrs. Knight: Could the Minister give us the benefit of the estimate, which he must have made, as to the cost of the exemption machinery?

Mr. Robinson: I do not think that that arises out of this Question.

Sir C. Osborne: How much will the Exchequer save now under the latest estimates, allowing for these exemptions, by the imposition of prescription charges generally?

Mr. Robinson: I have no reason to believe that the saving in a full year will be substantially different from the original estimates.

Mr. Molloy: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that with the vast complications arising from the declaration of the intention to introduce prescription charges, allied to the intention to exclude the chronic sick, the best thing would be to abolish the first intention?

Mr. Robinson: I would not accept my hon. Friend's premises.

Lord Balniel: Does the Minister of Health still agree with the Minister of Health, who in July, 1967, said that the reintroduction of prescription charges would damage the Health Service irreparably?

Mr. Robinson: The Minister of Health on that occasion was referring to a wholly different system of prescription charges in which no attempt whatever had been made to exempt, not only the chronic sick, but also the other hardship classes who are being quite clearly and categorically exempted now.

Mr. Manuel: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the number that ought to be eligible for exemption has been drastically pruned because of his inability to reach agreement with the doctors regarding the chronic sick?

Mr. Robinson: No, Sir. When we began discussing the question of chronic sick with the doctors no estimate could be made about the numbers involved, so I cannot accept my hon. Friend's statement that there has been any drastic reduction. If he has followed the answers that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Social Security has given he will see that a very considerable number which was previously in the refund category has been added to the exemption category by the arrangements which she will be able to make.

Mr. Dean: asked the Minister of Health when prescription charges will be introduced.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Health when he now proposes that prescription charges will be introduced.

Mr. K. Robinson: On 10th June.

Mr. Dean: The right hon. Gentleman is referring to what he calls the interim arrangements. When does he intend to introduce permanent arrangements for prescription charges?

Mr. Robinson: Not yet, but as soon as possible.

Mr. Cronin: While I deplore the imposition of these charges, will my right hon. Friend give some consideration to taking other measures to reduce the general public's psychological dependence on pills and medicines which are so often prescribed unnecessarily, and thereby have finance available to improve the hospital service, which greatly needs improving?

Mr. Robinson: I naturally do everything open to a Minister of Health to reduce over-prescribing, but perhaps to the extent that my hon. Friend's charges are substantiated the remedy lies in the hands of his own profession.

Drug Addicts (Treatment)

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Health if he will now review the provisions for the treatment of drug addicts in order to provide round-the-clock clinic facilities.

Mr. K. Robinson: Facilities for the treatment of heroin addiction are being kept under review. For the reasons given in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) on 26th March, 24-hour outpatient clinics are not considered necessary or desirable.—[Vol. 761, c. 246.]

Mrs. Short: Does my right hon Friend accept that many doctors working in the field of addiction are convinced that patients cannot be treated successfully simply on an out-patient basis? Will he further consider the action he has taken with regard to the Chelsea addiction centre, which is a centre of this kind, where the doctors are now prevented from prescribing heroin to their patients? Is he aware that they treated more than 120 patients last year and that about one-third of the patients were currently receiving heroin? Will he please look at this whole aspect again?

Mr. Robinson: On the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I am aware that there is always more than one view on almost every subject in any profession, not least the medical profession, but the consensus of opinion is in the sense of my reply. I can assure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I gave the most careful consideration to the decision whether or not to license the doctors at the Chelsea addiction clinic. One of them has now accepted an appointment in the hospital service and is treating patients as a licensed hospital doctor under consultant supervision.

Mr. Dean: Will the Minister comment on the disturbing reports now coming in about a growing black market in drugs following the introduction of the new arrangements?

Mr. Robinson: This is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I understand that the reports are regarded as exaggerated.

Mr. Deedes: Is the Minister aware that as far as the main Question is concerned some of us at least have come round to his point of view? If there is to be a choice between requiring clinics to conform to the addicts or requiring addicts to conform to the clinics there is a great deal to be said for the second alternative.

Mr. Robinson: I am grateful to the right hon Gentleman. That is certainly the advice that has been tendered to me.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Can my right hon. Friend give some idea of how many addicts are coming forward to the clinics at present?

Mr. Robinson: We were to have had an opportunity of debating this matter last night, but we were frustrated. Off the cuff, I think that the answer is that about 700 addicts are on the books of hospitals serving the London area at present.

Family Planning Act

Mr. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied with the action taken by local authorities to implement the provisions of the Family Planning Act; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. K. Robinson: I have still not received sufficient reports from local authorities to enable me to say.

Mrs. Short: In that case, would my right hon. Friend adopt a rather more energetic attitude towards the local authorities that appear to be dragging their feet on this matter? Does he not agree that this could make a very valuable contribution to the problem that many of us face in the Midlands? Will he see that the local authorities really carry out the responsibilities that Parliament has placed upon them?

Mr. Robinson: My hon. Friend and the House know my attitude towards this matter. Whether or not she considers my action energetic enough, I can tell her that I have already reminded authorities and approximately 60 per cent. have so far responded.

Mr. Brooks: Would my right hon. Friend agree that those authorities dragging their feet are adopting a very shortsighted attitude, not least financially? Would he consider circulating to such authorities a cost-benefit analysis, which would show the advantages of a comprehensive family planning service?

Mr. Robinson: I am sure that this consideration will not be out of the minds of local authorities generally. I would not wish to be drawn to comment on this until I have had the chance to study the general picture, which will be available when the remaining authorities have reported to me.

Medway Towns (Medical Services)

Mr. Burden: asked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to improve medical services in the Medway Towns in view of the present acute shortage of doctors in the area and the estimate in the survey carried out by the local medical committee, a copy of which has been sent to him, that 25 per cent. of the present medical practitioners in Kent have intimated their intention of leaving the service during the next five years.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Julian Snow): The results of the survey were not sent to my right hon. Friend. I understand, however, that of the doctors who replied, 8·3 per cent. said that they contemplated retirement within the next five years and a further 14·6 per cent. that


they might possibly do so. These figures are what might reasonably be expected from the age distribution of those who replied. Initial practice allowances are available to doctors starting to practise in under-doctored areas, such as the Medway Towns, and my right hon. Friend has recently arranged for these and other allowances available in areas of greatest shortage to be publicised.

Mr. Burden: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the whole of the Medway Town have been designated and, as a result of a shortage of doctors, it is proving impossible to give them an adequate medical service? Is he further aware that many doctors are now called upon to serve 3,500 patients, which is absolutely disgraceful? What will he do about it?

Mr. Snow: May I say first that I welcome the setting up by the executive council, the local medical committee and the Medway and Gravesend division of the B.M.A. of a standing committee to consider problems of the area as they arise. We are conscious of the fact that there is difficulty in certain parts of the area to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. At the same time we think it is a little early to judge the results of the publicity of the financial aids to which I have referred.

Doctors (Designated Areas)

Mr. Burden: asked the Minister of Health if he will take steps to remove the present restriction whereby the inducement of the extra payment of £400 is withheld from doctors entering a designated area for three years from the date on which an area is so categorised.

Mr. K. Robinson: A review of the criteria for eligibility for the £400 allowance is in progress, but I cannot yet say what its outcome will be. There is a separate allowance which is payable immediately on entry to a designated area.

Mr. Burden: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for telling me that this matter is under consideration. Does he agree that if an area is designated, thus indicating an acute shortage of doctors, it is rather stupid that the incentive should be delayed for three years before being

introduced, when the acute shortage is already present?

Mr. Robinson: It does not necessarily denote an acute and lasting shortage of doctors. The arrangements were introduced in 1966, in agreement with the profession. It was not thought that designation by itself should qualify an area for the allowance, because the intention was that it should be paid in areas chronically short of doctors. Very often areas cease to be designated after a short period.

Notifiable Diseases

Mr. Fortescue: asked the Minister of Health whether he will take early action to seek to codify and simplify the law relating to notifiable diseases.

Mr. Snow: We see no need for such action at present in respect of the relevant Acts of Parliament, but my right hon. Friend proposes to revise and consolidate the numerous relevant statutory instruments as soon as possible after the passage of the Health Services and Public Health Bill.

Health Service (Administrative Structure)

Mr. Moyle: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the strictures on hospital management contained in Reports Nos. 29 and 60 of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, he will introduce legislation to replace regional hospital boards and hospital management committees by a one-tier professional system of management.

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health if the green paper he proposes to issue on the National Health Service will include the results of his consideration of the Report of the Royal Commission on Medical Education; and to what extent it will relate to the implementation of the recommendations contained therein.

Mr. K. Robinson: I would ask both my hon. Friends to await the Green Paper on the administrative structure of the medical and related services. In my review of the present structure I am taking account of the relevant recommendations of the reports to which they refer.

Mr. Moyle: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that, despite the dedicated service of the many people on regional hospital boards and similar organisations, their general image is one of weakness, gentility and amateur do-goodism and that the best way of dealing with it is to give these organisations proper professional management for the great benefit of the public and the employees in these organisations?

Mr. Robinson: I would not accept my hon. Friend's assertions. The fact that I am making this review of the administrative structure is not a reflection on those charged with the duty of carrying out the various arms of the Health Service. It is merely to see whether we can get a better framework within which which this dedicated work can be done.

Mr. Pavitt: When may we expect the Green Paper?

Mr. Robinson: I cannot say precisely, but I hope that it will be fairly soon.

Dr. John Dunwoody: If there are to be alterations in the administration of the hospital service, would not my right hon. Friend agree that they should be part of a much wider, all-embracing review of the administration of the Health Service as a whole, taking into account public health and general practitioner services?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, Sir. I think that I made it clear in my original announcement about the intention to publish a Green Paper that it would deal with the National Health Service as a whole—medical and related services—and go far beyond the administration of the hospital service.

Mr. Dean: Can the Minister give an undertaking that there will be no change made in the structure of our world-famous teaching hospitals without the fullest possible consultation?

Mr. Robinson: I have already said that the Green Paper is being published only for the purposes of consultation. Therefore, the answer to that question is that there will be consultation.

Nursing Agencies

Mr. Moyle: asked the Minister of Health whether he accepts the recommendation of Report No. 60 of the

National Board for Prices and Incomes that the use of nursing agencies should be discontinued in National Health Service hospitals.

Mr. K. Robinson: I am considering this recommendation.

Mr. Moyle: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the present system of nursing agencies is wasteful, inefficient and expensive? Would he not, therefore, agree that the supply of nursing services in London as recommended by the Board is the solution to the problem?

Mr. Robinson: I am considering this proposal, because there are aspects of this which need very careful consideration. On 31st July, 1967, there were 1,300 agency nurses employed in the National Health Service, which was nearly 200 fewer than in 1965. Nearly 1,000 of them were in hospitals in the area of the London boroughs, and some hospitals, in particular the post-graduate teaching hospitals, rely on them heavily. But, of course, I should like to see the numbers reduced. As I say, I am considering this specific recommendation.

Drugs (Purchase Tax)

Mr. Eadie: asked the Minister of Health what representations he has received from organisations asking for exemption from Purchase Tax or drugs dispensed on doctor's prescription; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Snow: None that I can trace.

Mr. Eadie: Is my hon. Friend aware that that is a very strange Answer, especially when we bear in mind that Scottish pharmacists are at present in dispute about the machinations or working out the prescription charges?

Mr. Snow: The Question which we were asked was what representations we had received, and my reply was, none that I can trace. But if it is of any comfort to my hon. Friend, he should know that, broadly speaking, all ethical drugs are exempt from Purchase Tax other than those which the Standing Joint Committee on the Classification of Proprietary Medicines regards as being of doubtful therapeutic value.

Slimming Pills

Mr. Jopling: asked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the evidence, details of which have been sent


to him, given to a Senate Sub-Committee in Washington of the danger to health, and of deaths being caused by slimming pills; and what evidence he has of similar problems being met in this country.

Mr. Snow: Yes, Sir. The main hazard in this country is possible misuse of or habituation to preparations containing amphetamines and related compounds. My Department has recently drawn doctors' attention specifically to the potential dangers presented by the amphetamines.

Mr. Jopling: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the United States, where these deaths have been reported, clinics exist for slimming, in which doctors specialise, and that there is very little to prevent doctors from doing much the same here and dishing out these most dangerous drugs on prescriptions to anyone who cares to call?

Mr. Snow: At present, we have no up-to-date, reliable breakdown of the use to which amphetamines prescribed have been used. The Standing Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence intends to consider the problems associated with the use of amphetamines.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Would my hon. Friend say whether over the last few years there has been an increase or decrease in the amount of amphetamines prescribed in this country?

Mr. Snow: No; I have not that information.

Mr. Cronin: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind that being substantially over-weight is also a dangerous disease and that this is a much more serious consideration than the infrequent dangers of amphetamine drugs?

Mr. Snow: So my hon. Friend told me three years ago.

Mr. D. A. Goldie (Power Splint)

Mr. Victor Yates: asked the Minister of Health if he has considered the need of Mr. D. A. Goldie of Birmingham for a power splint similar to those being supplied to the British Polio Fellowship to remedy the condition caused by a broken shoulder and paralysed arm; and

how long this man will have to wait before he is able to obtain such an aid through the National Health Service.

Mr. Snow: A powered splint is now ready for clinical trials. Mr. Goldie has kindly agreed to take part in the trials and if it is shown that he will benefit from the device he will be provided with one.

Mr. Yates: Does not my hon. Friend realise that I submitted this case to him nine months ago and that this man suffered very considerable pain? Does he not think it reasonable to expect that this man should be given this splint without further delay in order to relieve the pain?

Mr. Snow: I do not think my hon. Friend understood my Answer. This unit is being developed. It is not yet ready for general use. That is why we are very pleased that Mr. Goldie has agreed to take part in the trials.

Population

Mr. Brooks: asked the Minister of Health whether he will undertake studies to establish the criteria for assessing the optimum population for the United Kingdom.

Mr. K. Robinson: I have no present plans for undertaking such studies.

Mr. Brooks: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that today Britain faces very serious land use problems arising from mounting population pressure? In these circumstances, has not the time come for a long-term policy on population to be defined and to recognise the reality and dangers of the long-term predicament in which we may find ourselves?

Mr. Robinson: I agree with my hon. Friend that this is an important matter. He will appreciate that it cuts across many Departmental boundaries. I am replying to his Question because I am responsible to Parliament for the Registrar General's activities. But there are many studies on population questions which need to be undertaken. It is, however, a little difficult to see how the optimum size of the population could be determined by objective criteria.

Mr. Lubbock: Would it not at least be very useful if the Minister undertook


long-term studies into the rate of the population change, as indicated by the Registrar General's report only yesterday which showed a decline in the birth rate, so that proper provision can be made for housing, schools, education and so on?

Mr. Robinson: These continuing studies are done by the Registrar General's Department. We shall have more and more information about this as the census becomes more and more sophisticated.

Oral Contraceptives

Mr. Brooks: asked the Minister of Health what is his latest estimate of the risks to health arising from the use of the contraceptive pill; and what plans he has to aid research designed to minimise such hazards.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Health what is his latest estimate of the risk to health arising from the use of the contraceptive pill; and what is his policy with regard to this.

Mr. K. Robinson: It is not possible in the present state of knowledge to estimate accurately all risks to health from the use of oral contraceptives, but those risks about which some information is available, including thrombo-embolism, appear to be much less than the total risks associated with pregnancy. A number of research projects of various kinds are already in progress with Government financial support, and will, it is hoped, provide more information on possible hazards involved.
The Committee on Safety of Drugs have advised me that they do not feel justified in recommending that oral contraceptives should be withdrawn from the market provided that they remain available only on prescription and that doctors and patients are aware of the degree of risk involved.

Mr. Brooks: I thank my right hon. Friend for that full and broadly reassuring reply. Does he agree that there is a need to investigate the side effects which appear to be experienced by different women, since they might be found only in certain types of individuals who are vulnerable to the particularly serious consequences of the pill?

Mr. Robinson: I agree that we need to know a good deal more about this matter.

My hon. Friend may like to know that some of the studies in progress are directed to this end.

Mr. Dean: Can the Minister say what steps are being taken to co-ordinate the various research projects taking place, which seem to be fairly large in number?

Mr. Robinson: I think that one should regard the Committee on the Safety of Drugs and the Medical Research Council as the co-ordinating bodies. The Committee on the Safety of Drugs is handling the continuous monitoring. The Medical Research Council is carrying out a longterm project, in association with the Family Planning Association, and it is also supporting a project being carried out by the Royal College of General Medical Practitioners.

Dr. Summerskill: Is the Minister entirely satisfied that the number of Government-sponsored pieces of research which are taking place are adequate to investigate a comparatively new drug which is taken by nearly a million women whose numbers are increasing every day?

Mr. Robinson: I think that the scale of research into this matter is adequate. I am speaking, of course, for this country. There is a great deal of research going on in other countries. Certainly the Medical Research Council and the Dunlop Committee are giving close and continuous attention to the problem.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Would the best answer be to develop a contraceptive pill which could be taken by men?

Mr. Robinson: This might be a solution, but conceivably this, too, might have undesirable side effects.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

Young Children (Visiting)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Minister of Health what further action he is taking to encourage unrestricted visiting by mothers to their very young children in hospital.

Mr. Snow: Reports received in 1966 showed that 85 per cent. of hospitals admitting children allowed either unrestricted visiting or visiting during eight or more hours a day. My Department has continued to urge the remainder to review their arrangements.

Mr. Winnick: I appreciate that Answer that the majority of hospitals allow unrestricted visiting for mothers of young children. Could my hon. Friend put additional pressure on the hospitals refusing to do so? Does he agree that all the medical and psychological evidence supports the theory that there should be unrestricted visiting by parents?

Mr. Snow: I think that my hon. Friend slightly exaggerates when he says "all medical opinion". I think that he will accept that there are certain cases and certain conditions where there are risks which should not be accentuated by visiting. But they are exceptional, and I accept my hon. Friend's general proposition that we should encourage progress as far as possible towards unrestricted visiting all round.

Waiting Lists

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Health how many patients are on waiting lists for in-patient treatment in hospitals; and how this figure compares with the figures in the previous three years.

Mr. Snow: I will, with permission, circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Costain: Will the Minister give us a little more information as to whether things are improving? Could he tell us whether the figures are the result of a shortage of hospital accommodation, nurses or doctors, or all three?

Mr. Snow: The tendency, as shown by the figures which will appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT, is for a slight worsening of the situation, but it is only slight. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is that there is an uncovering of latent demand, resulting from new services being provided, such as cytology screening and other matters. There are signs, but only signs, of a slight tendency towards improvement.

Dr. Gray: Does my hon. Friend think that the introduction of a "clocking-in" and "clocking-off" system for nurses at Northgate Hospital, Great Yarmouth, is likely to help the turndown in patients? Has this been done on his instructions?

Mr. Snow: I would like to have a look at that one.

Following are the figures:


Position at 31st December
Number of Patients on Waiting Lists


1967
…
…
…
537,005


1966
…
…
…
536,447


1965
…
…
…
517,224


1964
…
…
…
498,915

Geriatric Beds, South Westmorland

Mr. Jopling: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the need to establish more geriatric beds in South Westmorland, particularly in view of the number of people who have to be accommodated outside the area; and what consideration he has given to using the Ethel Hedley Hospital at Windermere for this purpose.

Mr. Snow: The majority of geriatric patients from South Westmorland are treated at Kendal Green Hospital and others at Lancaster Moor Hospital, both within the area served by the North Lancashire and South Westmorland Hospital Management Committee. The future of the Ethel Hedley Hospital is under consideration by the Manchester Regional Hospital Board whose proposals my right hon. Friend expects to receive soon.

Mr. Jopling: Would the hon. Gentleman recognise that it would be a great shame if the use of the Ethel Hedley Hospital has to change and it should be closed down? First, would he give an undertaking that it will be kept on, and, secondly, does he realise that it would be of the greatest convenience for any of the patients who have to go outside the area to go to that hospital?

Mr. Snow: I should explain perhaps that accommodation provided by the H.M.C. is for the area as a whole rather than on a limited county basis. Also, a small addition of beds is shortly to be made at Kendal Green Hospital. But I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the assurance for which he asks. This is a matter which first comes within the discretion of the regional hospital board, but it can be counted on to ensure an adequate provision of this type of bed.

Mental Patients

Captain W. Elliot: asked the Minister of Health under the new hospital building programme, what special provision is being made to accommodate and supervise mental patients transferred for rehabilitation from the special hospitals.

Mr. K. Robinson: Such patients are normally transferred to National Health Service psychiatric hospitals where their rehabilitation is continued in the same way as for other patients. A special unit at Balderton Hospital for patients transferred from Rampton is being planned.

Captain Elliot: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, although the rehabilitation of these patients in special hospitals is most important, measures should be taken to protect the interests of the staff at general hospitals and of the public, too?

Mr. Robinson: As I said, I think last week, in answer to a similar Question about transfers from Broadmoor, transfers are made only when the opinion of the consultant in charge of the case is that transfer is appropriate. Therefore, patients who have been transferred from the special hospitals should be regarded by all concerned as being on a par with the patients already being treated in National Health Service hospitals.

Psychiatric Hospitals, Birmingham Area

Mrs. Knight: asked the Minister of Health what consultations he had with outside bodies before he decided to regroup the psychiatric hospitals in the Birmingham Regional Hospitals area.

Mr. K. Robinson: I have not yet made a decision on the proposals for re-grouping submitted to me by the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board. I understand that the Board consulted widely before making their proposals to me.

Mrs. Knight: Is the Minister aware that the hospital management committees concerned are extremely worried about the way in which this decision has been reached?

Mr. Robinson: The hon. Lady should understand that no decision has been

reached. This is a recommendation by the Board which was submitted to me earlier this month. Under the proposals psychiatric hospitals which are now in eight separate groups under their own management committees would be grouped with neighbouring general hospitals under new management committees. I am considering these proposals not only in the light of the views of the Board, but of the hospital management committees and the other interests which have been consulted.

Mr. Victor Yates: Is the Minister prepared to receive a deputation of hon. Members from both sides of the House—which I have already asked him to do—so that we can put this matter clearly to him, because there is strong feeling about it?

Mr. Robinson: I am always willing to hear the views of hon. Members of this House on matters of this kind.

New Hospital, Dorchester

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Minister of Health when he anticipates that work on the new county hospital at Dorchester will now begin.

Mr. Snow: It is not yet possible to give a date. The project remains in the Wessex Regional Hospital Board's programme among the later developments expected in the period after 1970.

Mr. Digby: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that originally this hospital was to have been started this year and that, in the opinion of doctors, we cannot have efficient medical services in Dorset without it?

Mr. Snow: Services in existing hospitals will be maintained until my right hon. Friend is satisfied that satisfactory alternative provision can be made. During the last six years £415,000 has been spent on improvements in Dorchester, Weymouth and Bridport hospitals.

Oral Answers to Questions — LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (SPEECH)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Lord President of the Council at Basildon on 29th March about the


need for new methods of economic planning and incomes policy to be followed by Her Majesty's Government represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech by the Lord President of the Council on 29th March at Basildon, on the subject of new methods of incomes policy, represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does that Answer mean that the Prime Minister accepts his right hon. Friend's view that there is a widely felt need throughout the Labour Party for strong collective leadership capable of taking the necessary decisions, and, in view of the implication about his own leadership contained in that, what does he propose to do about it?

The Prime Minister: The phrase that my right hon. Friend used in the context of the Question was:
This will involve making the collective approval of strong measures and the collective acceptance of sacrifice prevail over our specific personal and group grievances
This is the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and we have always operated on the basis of collective leadership.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Does the Prime Minister agree with the Lord President that a General Election now would settle the fate of the Labour Party, and why not have a go?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is free to express an opinion. I do not intend putting this matter to the test, because I have full confidence that, when it is, we shall have the same result as we had last time.

Mr. William Hamilton: On the incomes policy part of the Question, can my right hon. Friend say whether it is now the view of the Government that the unions should be free to negotiate whatever increase they can get so long as the Government can be satisfied that that increase is less than the increase in productivity resulting from it?

The Prime Minister: It has always been our position, in successive White Papers, that the criterion on productivity is of the greatest importance. Certainly there need be no limit of the amount set in the White Paper if an addition beyond that limit is earned by clear and guaranteed arrangements about productivity.

Mr. Sandys: While it is doubtful whether any new planning methods would be an improvement, is it not a fact that up till now the Government's economic planning has been nothing but a disastrous fiasco?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to his personal opinion on this as on other matters. But he will also be aware of what had to be done, not only in terms of the balance of payments, but in terms of the long years in which nothing was done to deal with the problem of industrial drift which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues allowed to persist for so many years.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: On the incomes policy, can the Prime Minister explain why Ministerial salaries have gone up from £591,000 on 4th April to £613,000 on 23rd April?

The Prime Minister: I am not clear whether the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the figures for this year.

Mr. Fraser: Perhaps I may put my question again. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at Question No. 77, which I put to him but which he referred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will see that I asked why the salaries of Ministers had risen from £591,000 on 4th April to £613,000 on 23rd April this year, and this is taking figures issued by a Department of his own Government.

The Prime Minister: I shall be happy to study that question and arrange that either the Chancellor or I will answer it to the satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPACE POLICY (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he will now appoint one Minister to be responsible for space policy.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave to a


similar Question by him on 11th April. 1967. The arrangements I then outlined are I think still the most appropriate to our circumstances.—[Vol. 744, c. 963.]

Mr. Marten: As space, and particularly communications satellites, will obviously be one of the new technological industries of the future for this country requiring a long-term attitude towards investment, will the Prime Minister confirm that the Government intend to go ahead with a vigorous national space programme in the interests of the commercial life of this country?

The Prime Minister: The question of Ministerial responsibility is one to which I have given a lot of thought, and I still feel that it is right to adhere to the arrangement made by our predecessors in this matter. With regard to the future of the space programme, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the very full statement made in the House by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology on the day that we came back last week.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Will the right hon. Gentleman next time he is in Washington consider looking at COMSAT and realise the benefit of having in this country one individual in charge of both military and civil developments which are going on so fast in North America?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the Foreign Office. He will realise that there is a strong Foreign Office responsibility here for our negotiations with other countries, and that other Ministers are concerned. Like our predecessors, I feel that it is better not to centralise all the responsibility in one Department. I think, in the way that it has been put to the House before, that the Ministers responsible for celestial affairs are those who are responsible for their terrestrial counterparts.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTIONS

Mr. Archer: asked the Prime Minister whether he will establish a Commission to examine existing and proposed legislation in order to ensure conformity with the United Kingdom's obligations under human rights conventions.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. It is a normal responsibility of the Government

to ensure that existing or proposed legislation conforms with the United Kingdom's obligations under any international instrument to which it is a party.

Mr. Archer: Without impugning the admirable record of this country in this field, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees that it is better systematically to prevent infringements before someone gets hurt, and would not this also have the effect of reducing the appalling delays before ratifying such international obligations as the Genocide Convention?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That is why I think the House was moved last week by the quotation by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) of part of the Human Rights Convention which he felt was binding and over-riding on us all. That is why we have introduced the Race Relations Bill which was debated last week. We always have a problem, and have had under successive Governments, in respect of these human rights conventions and others of the special problems in one or two dependent territories, of the position in Rhodesia, and there has always been a derogation made which one day will have to be discussed with the Government concerned in respect of Northern Ireland.

Mr. Hogg: As the Prime Minister has referred to the Race Relations Bill, may I ask whether he will draw the attention of his right hon. Friend to an Amendment standing in my name and the names of other hon. Members to that Bill which will enable the Government to take advantage of his hon. Friend's suggestion?

The Prime Minister: I shall draw my right hon. Friend's attention to it, but I shall be surprised if he has not already studied it and realised its full implications. Obviously I would not wish to anticipate what will be said on both sides of the Committee when this matter is considered upstairs.

Oral Answers to Questions — VIETNAM

Mr. Whitaker: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the latest results of his efforts for peace in Vietnam and on what help


Great Britain will be prepared to offer for peaceful reconstruction there.

The Prime Minister: On the first part of the Question, I have at present nothing to add to the Answers I gave on 4th and 9th April to Questions by my hon. Friend and by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser). On the second part, we shall of course be prepared to participate as best we can in any international campaign to help repair the ravages of war in Vietnam which may be mounted once peace has been restored.—[Vol. 762, c. 605 and c. 1075.]

Mr. Whitaker: As the majority of the people in this country are less concerned with politics in Vietnam than with human suffering there, and since if the money spent on the war in Vietnam had been spent on peaceful developments Vietnam would, per capita, be the sixth richest country in the world, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will will take the initiative at the United Nations peacefully to reconstruct both sides of Vietnam as soon as there is a cease-fire?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will be aware that we gave full support to the proposals of the President of the United States in his Baltimore speech in April, 1965, three years ago, for massive resources for the Mekong Delta area and for Vietnam in general. We fully support that initiative, and any other which may be proposed. The problem is to get the parties to agree on the site for a conference table. I would certainly be prepared, and so would my right hon. Friend, to follow the suggestion of my hon. Friend to try to get international co-operation to repair the ravages of war there.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Has the Prime Minister reminded President Johnson of his frequent expressions of readiness to enter into peace talks with Hanoi at any time, anywhere, and if so, is he satisfied with the response?

The Prime Minister: It would not be appropriate to inform the House at this moment of the consultations which my right hon. Friend and I have had with all those concerned in this matter, including our fellow co-Chairman. It is our view, and this we urge on both

sides, that they should reach rapid agreement on a site at which these talks can begin with a view to ending the war.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: May I press my right hon. Friend further? Will he represent to President Johnson the dismay felt among friends of America by his apparent hesitation to honour his pledge to go anywhere at any time, and the apparent attempt by the powerful United States to gain an advantage even in preliminary talks about talks?

The Prime Minister: There is no question of advantage. It is a question, and both sides are concerned, of deciding where the appropriate site is which will be most likely to lead to agreement to leave the battlefield for the conference room. My right hon. Friend and I urge all parties, the two principal parties as well as our fellow co-Chairman, to reach rapid agreement on an appropriate site. We would be ready at any time, with our fellow co-Chairman, to take an initiative in this matter to help if that were desired by the two sides.

Mr. Bessell: Is the Prime Minister aware that some of us who have given unqualified support to the Government's policy for Vietnam are nevertheless deeply disturbed by the failure of the President of the United States to agree on site, in view of the pledge that he gave, and this is doing great damage to Anglo-American relations? Will he press the President personally to fulfil his obligations in this matter?

The Prime Minister: I am aware of the concern, but so far it has been a failure by both sides to agree on an appropriate site. A large number of sites have been suggested by the United States Government. I know the impatience of the House in this matter. We as a Government share that impatience, and we shall do everything in our power to get the two parties to come together and get the talks started as soon as possible.

Mrs. Anne Kerr: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that one modest contribution which Britain could make at the moment to clearing the air over the whole question of Vietnam, as who is to blame and not to blame. who is more to blame and who is less to blame, would be to admit Madame Bui Thi Cam and Madame Ha Giang, who for


the last three or four weeks have been waiting in Paris for visas to enter Britain?

The Prime Minister: I was not aware of the position of those two ladies. No doubt my right hon. Friend is aware of the matter. I think that my hon. Friend knows the Government's general policy about visitors from Vietnam. Anyone who is prepared to come here and make a positive contribution to peace, and by peace I mean peace, and not either propaganda or "Victory for Vietcong", will be encouraged.

Oral Answers to Questions — CABINET COMMITTEES

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now answer questions about the membership and functions of Cabinet committees.

The Prime Minister: The House knows that it has long been the practice normally to refuse detailed information about the Government's internal arrangements for the discussion of public business, although very general information about arrangements for the collective consideration of important matters is sometimes released when this is thought to be in the public interest. It has not been the practice to disclose the membership of individual Committees.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: As the Prime Minister has seen fit to blazon the formation of the Parliamentary Committee across the headlines, has not he an obligation to tell the House about the membership and functions of this body? If it is just a sort of Winter Emergency Committee for all seasons it does not matter, but if it is an inner Cabinet should not the House know who are its members and also who are not?

The Prime Minister: I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman was going to pay a tribute to the work of the Winter Emergency Committee in widening availability of productive capacity in the industries concerned compared with the situation which existed when we set it up.
I have blazoned nothing about the Parliamentary Committee. It is proper for it to be known that there is such a Committee, but it would be contrary to all precedent to indicate here or else-where the membership of the Commit-

tee. There has been a lot of ill-informed speculation about it but that it not my responsibility.

Mr. Roebuck: Can my right hon. Friend explain whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) will be attending these meetings in his capacity as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, Chief Whip, Patronage Secretary, or Deputy Leader of the House? If he does so in the last named capacity, will he relate it to his duties to the House?

The Prime Minister: The answer to the first part of the question is "Yes". The answer to the second part is also "Yes".

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Would not it be more suitable if colleagues of the Prime Minister, such as the Home Secretary, made announcements about these committees in the House and not on "Panorama?"

The Prime Minister: There is always a problem which all right hon. Members have of having these questions shot at them, but the existence of an Immigration Committee was announced by me in this House as long ago as 9th March, 1965. What is new about this is that a few weeks ago it was decided that responsibility for community relations in the widest sense, and the kind of problems that we were discussing last week, would be within the purview of this collective discussion. I think that that is helpful. I do not think that my right hon. Friend did anything improper in the answer that he gave last night.

Mr. Hector Hughes: In considering these very important functional matters, would my right hon. Friend give due regard to the relations, industrial and political, of Scotland with the rest of Europe, particularly Russia and the Far East?

The Prime Minister: All relevant questions affecting both Scotland and Europe and the areas covered by my hon. and learned Friend will, of course, be dealt with adequately on a collective basis in the future as in the past.

Sir G. Nabarro: Has the right hon. Gentleman not failed to observe that what the whole country wants to know is whether his position in the Government


today is the same as it was on 16th January last, or whether it has in the interim suffered a profound change for the worse?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman must not believe all he reads in the newspapers, especially the Tory newspapers. The position is exactly the same, but these questions relate to the functions and membership of Cabinet Committees and it has never been the practice to reveal them to the House. For example, even now, right hon. Gentlemen opposite have never informed the House of the terms of reference, membership and functions of the so-called "Pretext Committee" set up in August, 1956, to examine the circumstances in which it would safe to invade Suez.

BOTSWANA (GIFTS)

3.32 p.m.

Mr. F. Blackburn: This House gave leave of absence to four of its Members to present on its behalf a Parliamentary Library and silver inkstand to the National Assembly of Botswana. The delegation consisted of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Michael Hamilton), my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas) and myself. We were accompanied by Mr. Michael Lawrence, Clerk of the Overseas Office.
It is my pleasant duty to report that our mission was carried out in the Chamber of the National Assembly in Gaberones. I know that my colleagues would wish me to express our appreciation of the very cordial reception which

we received, the excellent hospitality which we enjoyed and the very interesting programme of visits arranged for us. We are grateful to the House for entrusting us with such a pleasant task.
The Speaker of the National Assembly desired us to thank you, Mr. Speaker. for your personal letter of good will which we carried to him on your behalf. The Leader of the House, Dr. Quett Masire, expressed on behalf of the National Assembly their warm gratitude for the gifts, and the following Resolution was then unanimously passed:
We, the National Assembly of Botswana here assembled, express our sincere thanks to the Honourable Commons of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the gift presented to us by their delegation to mark the attainment of Independence by Botswana.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that, in accordance with precedent, you will order the Resolution to be entered in the Journal of the House.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: If that is the wish of the House—and, from what I hear, it is —that Resolution will be entered in the records of the House. The House would wish me to congratulate the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) and his colleagues for carrying out the pleasant task entrusted to them. I would add my own thanks for the kind personal message which they brought me back from Botswana, by hand, from the Speaker of the National Assembly.

WATER RESOURCES BILL

Referred for consideration on Report to a Standing Committee.—[Mr. Concannon.]

ROAD TRAFFIC ACT 1960 (AMENDMENT)

3.37 p.m.

Mr. Harold Gurden: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to extend the provisions of subsection (3) of section 203 of the Road Traffic Act 1960 to protect the property of any person arising out of the use of a vehicle on a road.
As it now stands, the 1960 Act requires a motor vehicle to be insured against the liabilities of third parties who suffer death or bodily injury only. Also, the policy holder is bound to complete the policy conditions by submitting a claim form to the insurance company supplying the information of the accident. This works very well for death and bodily injury, even though it may only be a cut finger, but if the damage is to property, no matter how serious, the offender is not obliged to claim from his insurance company. If he wishes to run the risk of civil action, he may not come to any harm even through that.
The insurance companies say that, if an insured refuses to fill in a claim form for any purpose, they are not liable for the damages and will not pay. All that is left is resort to civil action for property damage, no matter how serious, and this could cause great hardship. In the days of wider car ownership, the people involved are not always well off, and cars and other property are severely damaged daily through no fault of the owner. One might be resting in the garden on a Sunday afternoon and suffer considerable damage even though one is not under-insured and has been guilty of no negligence. Delays, of course, are involved, as well as great hardship and loss of earnings.
This is very awkward for those in the working class community who are now car owners. This occurs daily and almost hourly. A Royal Commission, way back in 1929, rejected the proposal to cover property damage, and my inquiries of the Ministry suggest that there is little interest in Government circles in extending the 1960 Act.
It is often said that there is little evidence of widespread hardship because of the lack of this provision, but I suggest that the amount of hardship is increasing

continually with the wider ownership of vehicles. Many car owners take the absolute minimum of insurance and are very loath to lose their no-claims bonus.
I have evidence from my constituents and others—and similar evidence has been published in many daily newspapers—that people do avoid their liabilities and responsibilities by refusing to claim on their insurance companies. One such case was highlighted in the newspapers. A very rich man, owning a Rolls-Royce, refused to fill in a claim form. I suppose that he would suffer the risk of the insurance company refusing to insure him at all if he made further claims, so he let the case go on until it reached the civil courts, with considerable trouble, loss and injury to the person whose car he damaged. It is very expensive and troublesome for people without considerable means to go through the courts in a civil action; and, of course, they are worried about finding the money to start such actions.
Mr. Speaker, my Bill seeks a simple amendment to Section 203(3,a) of the Road Traffic Act 1960. It would, I suggest, be quite fair and reasonable upon all motor vehicle owners, requiring that they should complete their responsibilities. I will not take up the time of the House by quoting the many instances that come to mind. We see them every day on the roads and often wonder whether or not the injured person will receive compensation, or whether the insured will fill in a claim form at all. The simple amendment is that after the words "bodily injury" there be added the words "or property of".

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gurden, Mr. Speed and Mr. William Wilson.

ROAD TRAFFIC ACT 1960 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to extend the provisions of subsection (3) of Section 203 of the Road Traffic Act 1960 to protect the property of any person arising out of the use of a vehicle on a road, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday, 31st May. [Bill 136.]

RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES BILL

3.45 p.m.

Order for Second Reading read.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Anthony Crosland): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is a short Bill designed to make certain improvements in the law relating to restrictive trade practices. It has two main purposes. On the one hand, it makes it possible to exempt from registration under the 1956 Act trade agreements which may be needed to promote efficiency, raise productivity, or hold down prices. On the other hand, it strengthens the existing legislation and the power of enforcement in certain respects where experience has shown this to be desirable.
It may be useful, Mr. Speaker, if I try to show how the Bill fits into the sequence of post-war legislation on monopolies and restrictive practices, and how it relates to the Government's other industrial policies.
Ever since the 1944 White Paper on Full Employment, Parliament has proceeded with a broad measure of agreement on this subject. There have, of course, been important differences of emphasis, but generally the House has not been deeply divided on party lines. This was true when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, then President of the Board of Trade, introduced the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Act of 1948 which set up the Monopolies Commission and, for the first time, provided that the exercise of market power, whether by individual firms or through restrictive agreements, could be investigated and, where necessary, brought under a measure of public control.
Then in 1956, the party opposite brought in the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, which provided for the registration of restrictive agreements relating to goods and set up the Restrictive Practices Court. The Resale Prices Act of 1964 was specifically directed against resale price maintenance and sought to abolish it except where it could be specially justified.
More recently, in the Monopolies and Mergers Act of 1965, the present Government extended the field of work of the

Monopolies Commission to cover both important mergers and take-overs and also restrictive agreements relating to services. Throughout this process of evolution, the underlying objective has remained the same. It has been to check restrictions on competition and undesirable forms of market power, without at the same time hindering improvements in efficiency or necessary changes in industrial structure.
Throughout, the basis of the legislation has been pragmatic and not dogmatic. It is true that the 1956 Act introduced a presumption that restrictive agreements would generally operate against the public interest. This reflected the view—shared, I would think, by most economists and certainly by most hon. Members—that such agreements more often than not produce the disadvantages of monopoly, the feather-bedding and protection, without giving the advantages of greater size and greater strength in the individual firm.
But this presumption can be rebutted, and agreements accepted by the court, where it can be shown that they produce specific benefits and advantages outweighing their detriments. In the case of monopolies and mergers there is no presumption in the law that market power works against the public interest.
So much for the general background. But there is now a new factor in the situation, and a new emphasis in Government policy. The Government do not believe that the unaided working of market forces will always be sufficient to bring about the needed rationalisation of industry. There are always strong influences tending towards inertia and the maintenance of the status quo. So the Government have increasingly found it necessary to take a view about the structure of important sectors of industry, and to try to bring about desirable changes both directly through the sponsoring Departments for industry, and indirectly through the work of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation and the Economic Development Committees, the "Little Neddies".
These changes, which are all designed to encourage long-run productivity and innovation, may involve co-operative action between firms in an industry; or they may involve a deliberate process of merger and rationalisation.
I do not think that this policy is, in principle, inconsistent with the existing law on monopolies and restrictive practices, though it is sometimes said to be. If I decide, for example, to refer a merger to the Monopolies Commission, a commentator is sure to say that this is at odds with the policy of promoting rationalisation through the I.R.C.
In my view, however, it is not. On the facts of the case, out of nearly 250 mergers examined by the Board of Trade, only eight have been referred to the Monopolies Commission. The Government have no doubt that the leading firms in our major industries must take their place in the big international league and must operate on a worldwide scale. This will often mean that they must be of great size and strength, and may need to be vertically-integrated concerns covering several stages of manufacture. Moreover, it may be quite inappropriate to measure their market power simply by reference to the home market; in an open economy like ours, we need to look at it in relation to their place in world markets.
So there will be many situations where the long-term advantages of large scale, and the better use of resources through massive research and development expenditures and confident investment policies, will outweigh the possible detriment of monopoly power. In short, in particular situations market power may be a necessity.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. All he has said is entirely consistent and cogent in so far as one is referring to monopoly power. But, of course, the Measure introduced by his predecessor did not confine itself to that but introduced a £5 million test, quite irrespective of monopoly power; and it is to that that most of the criticism and alleged conflict to which he has referred has been directed. Would he deal with that?

Mr. Crosland: The answer to this alleged conflict, if it does not lie in the arguments I am giving, lies in the figures I am quoting; that out of about 250 mergers examined only eight have been referred to the Monopolies Commission. We could make a reference either under the monopoly criterion or, as the hon.

Gentleman rightly pointed out, under the criterion of the capital sums involved.
On the other hand, as the T.U.C. Economic Review put it, it is
… dangerous to assume that all takeovers and mergers necessarily lead to major gains in economic efficiency".
Just because market power is often necessary, we must have a suitable means of watching and checking its effect; hence the need for laws on monopoly and restrictive practices. But provided that we keep a proper balance between the long-term dynamic considerations and those more immediately affecting consumers, there is, in my view, no inconsistency whatever in making use in particular cases of our powers to investigate the possible detriments of market power.
While there is no general inconsistency with the existing law, the new emphasis in Government policy requires some amendment to it, and particularly to the restrictive practices legislation. This legislation has done an excellent job in ridding the economy of many hundreds of restrictive practices designed to preserve the status quo and impede desirable change. At the same time, it has provided a sieve through which beneficial agreements could pass. It has been a fine sieve in that only 11 of over 2,000 registered agreements have been successfully defended—though there is no evidence that agreements that would have been in the national interest have been condemned.
However, although the law has generally proved satisfactory, the work done in the Economic Development Committees and elsewhere to find new ways of increasing industrial efficiency has shown the need for some amendments to it, and this is one of the reasons for this Bill. It has been represented to us that the law as it stands is impeding schemes, which, through the E.D.C.s or as a result of recommendations of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, or in other ways, the Government are urging industry to adopt. Industry takes the line, naturally enough, that it will not embark on such schemes if to do so might involve it in the trouble and expense of defending a registrable agreement before the Restrictive Practices Court.
For example, several E.D.C.s have suggested forms of co-operative action


which might depend on making a registrable agreement. The E.D.C. for the electrical engineering industry has recommended a reduction in varieties—for example in cables and transformers—to reduce costs, but firms may be unwilling to reduce the number of lines they offer unless other firms agree to do the same. The E.D.C. for the building trades has recommended standard form contracts in the building industry, as was proposed also by the Banwell Committee. The E.D.C. for the chemical industry has suggested tiat its work on import saving might go ahead faster if companies did not feel inhibited about agreeing on their investment programmes.
A change in the law is needed to meet the requirements of the prices and incomes policy. The most effective way of ensuring that an industry holds down its prices may be for the trade association concerned to recommend its members not to increase prices, or only to increase them by a figure agreed with the Government. But such a recommendation might give rise to a registrable agreement. So, too, might an agreement to reduce prices, though this could hardly be seen as exploiting monopoly power.
I am certainly not saying that every argument of this kind should be accepted. There may be other and better ways of solving the problem. But I accept that in certain cases, and subject to proper safeguards, co-operative action to improve efficiency may be not only justified but positively desirable, and it would be absurd to place unnecessary obstacles in the way of action designed to carry out the Government's industrial policy.
The other main reason for amending the law is quite different. It arises from the need to remove certain weaknesses which have become apparent in the-operation of the 1956 Act. First, there is at present no effective deterrent against failure to register an agreement. In the early years of the legislation, parties to an agreement usually registered it of their own accord. But now it has become widely recognised that there is no penalty for failure to register, and three-quarters of all registrations are now made only after prodding by the Registrar.
Secondly, information agreements, particularly relating to prices, are being used to circumvent the object of the 1956 Act, and often replace agreements which have

themselves been swept away by the Act. The parties can evade the Act in this way because the definition of a registrable agreement is not wide enough to include all information agreements which can be so drawn as to produce the same effect as common price agreements.
These are the broad objects of the Bill, and I now come to its details. Clause 1 gives the Board of Trade a discretionary power to exempt from registration under the 1956 Act—and so from judicial examination by the Restrictive Practices Court—for a specified period agreements of national importance which promote industrial efficiency or provide for new capacity.
I realise that this gives the Government wide powers of administrative discretion, and might be thought incompatible with the philosophy of the 1956 Act. I therefore stress that there is no question of the Board of Trade operating in the area of the court's jurisdiction.
What I propose is a separate procedure to deal with urgent problems of industrial structure and efficiency, where it is a matter of national importance for an agreement to be made and where it would be unreasonable, therefore, having accepted the need for an agreement, to force the parties to bear the cost of defending it before the court. There is no question of sharing jurisdiction with the court, and for agreements outside these categories the court's jurisdiction remains absolute. I fully recognise the essential contribution which the court has made, and will continue to make, in ridding industry of undesirable agreements.
This exemption procedure is subject to a number of safeguards. The Board of Trade must be satisfied that, on balance, the proposed agreement is desirable in the national interest, that its object cannot be achieved in a reasonable time except by means of the agreement and that the restrictions it contains are no more than necessary to secure this object. The Bill also provides for exemption orders and copies of exempted agreements to be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and for copies of exempted agreements to be made available for public inspection, save in certain exceptional cases.
On the other hand, industry must have some assurance that an exempted agreement will be allowed to run for a


reasonable period. So, although the Board has certain limited powers to withdraw exemption before the period for which it was granted has elapsed, it may not do so in the first year of its operation, except where there has been misrepresentation or where important new facts come to light. In administering Clause 1, I shall, of course, work closely with the Departments responsible for the industries to which such agreements relate.
Clause 2 relates to the administration of the prices and incomes policy. In operating a prices policy on a voluntary basis, Government Departments will often wish to secure the acceptance by industry of restraints on price increases. In particular, they need to secure undertakings, under the early warning system, that industry will give them advance notice of proposed price increases, and that such price increases will be deferred or limited in amount. But such undertakings, if they affect trade associations or two or more suppliers, may involve industry in making an agreement which would be registrable under the present law; and industry is naturally unwilling to risk the consequent proceedings before the Restrictive Practices Court.
Clause 2 therefore empowers those Government Departments which are concerned in operating the prices and incomes policy to exempt from registration agreements made at their request for the purpose of reducing prices, or preventing or restricting increases in prices. Exemption may be given for a period not exceeding two years, and it may be either extended or withdrawn for misuse. exempted agreements must be made available for public inspection.
Clause 3 makes various supplementary provisions which follow from Clauses 1 and 2.
The present law already exempts from registration agreements to make goods in accordance with a British standard. Clause 4 widens this exemption, both to cover agreements about the acquisition or supply of goods made in accordance with British standards, and agreements about standards approved by the Board of Trade and made by standard-making bodies other than the British Standards Institution. This Clause supplements the provision exempting agreements of importance to the national economy.
With Clause 5 we come to the second main purpose of the Bill, which is to remove certain weaknesses in the operation of the 1956 Act. The first of these is the use of information agreements to circumvent the object of that Act. Clause 5 therefore empowers the Board of Trade, by Statutory Instrument, subject to the negative Resolution procedure, to require any class of information agreements to be registered.
The Board is given a wide power to classify agreements. The power is an enabling one, and it is not my intention to call up for registration obviously useful types of agreement, for example, agreements made to support work on inter-firm comparisons. This provision is similar to that proposed in the previous administration's White Paper of 1964.
The other weakness to which I referred was the difficulty which the Registrar has experienced in securing compliance with the provisions of the 1956 Act. While that Act imposes an obligation to furnish particulars of an agreement to the Registrar within three months, it imposes no penalty on those who fail to comply. The Bill therefore seeks to strengthen this part of the legislation.
Clause 6 lays down the periods within which particulars of agreements are to be sent to the Registrar for registration. The period is normally three months, as at present, or before the restrictions in the agreement come into force, whichever is the earlier. Special provision is made for transitional cases; for amended agreements; for information agreements newly called up for registration under Clause 5; and for agreements exempted under Clauses 1 and 2, when the period of exemption has expired, or the exemption has been revoked.
Clause 7 makes unlawful any agreement which is not registered within the period laid down by Clause 6. It does not impose criminal sanctions, but persons damaged by the operation of an unlawful agreements can seek civil remedies. This follows the precedent of the Resale Prices Act. The Registrar is also empowered to seek an injunction to prohibit parties to an unlawful agreement from operating it; or from carrying out or enforcing any other registrable agreement if they have not duly registered it.
Under the 1956 Act, the Registrar has a statutory duty to refer all agreements


to the Restrictive Practices Court, including agreements which have been determined, or whose restrictions have been removed or abandoned. I am using as far as possible the legal language of the Act. To relieve the Registrar and the court of much unnecessary work, Clause 9 gives the Registrar discretion whether or not to refer such defunct agreements to the court. The only purpose of instituting procedings in respect of an agreement which is genuinely defunct is to seek a court order precluding the making of a fresh agreement to the like effect. Such proceedings are likely to be rare, but will sometimes be necessary.
The Board of Trade already has power under Section 12 of the 1956 Act to exempt insignificant agreements from examination by the court on the ground that they are of no substantial economic significance. In practice, we have found that the definition of such agreements is too narrow. There are a large number of agreements on the register which do not warrant legal proceedings, but which do not seem to satisfy the criteria of Section 12. Moreover, the requirement that the Registrar should remove particulars of insignificant agreements from the register has in practice proved a nuisance. One agreement has been removed and then restored because of trivial amendments no less than six times.
The Bill, therefore, repeals the existing Section 12, except for certain transitional purposes, and substitutes for it a power for the Board of Trade to direct that an agreement should not be referred to the court, if it is not of such significance as to call for investigation by the court.
Clause 10 provides a new ground for defence which will allow parties to plead before the Court that a restriction is not contrary to the public interest because it does not have the effect, directly or indirectly, of restricting competition to a material extent. This ground is intended mainly to provide a defence for information agreements, for which the other so-called "gateways" in section 21 of the 1956 Act are not likely to be appropriate. But it is not confined to information agreements. It can be used in defence of any restriction. This is also in line with what was proposed in the previous administration's 1964 White Paper.
Article 15 of the E.F.T.A. Stockholm Convention recognises that certain types of restrictive and monopoly practices may be incompatible with the Convention. Like other member States of E.F.T.A., we have accepted the obligation to implement decisions under this Article. Clause 11 therefore provides that the Board of Trade should have a discretionary power to declare void any agreement registered or notified under the 1956 Act which the E.F.T.A. Council has found by formal resolution to be in breach of Article 15. This will not apply to restrictions which were successfully defended before the court before the Bill becomes law.
The Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement contains a similar provision to Article 15 of the Stockholm Convention, and Clause 11 will, therefore, also apply to agreements which are incompatible with that agreement. The House will recall that powers were taken in the 1965 Monopolies and Mergers Act to enable the Government to honour international treaty obligations in relation to monopoly situations.
The remaining Clauses deal with relatively minor and consequential matters.
In introducing this Bill I have two objects in mind. The first is to ensure that our restrictive practices legislation does not fortuitously inhibit the over-riding national need for higher productivity and higher efficiency. The second is to ensure that the legislation works effectively to achieve the purposes which Parliament has in mind. I hope that both objectives will commend themselves to the House.

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Those of my hon. Friends who were here 12 years ago in 1956 when the Act to which this Bill is an amendment was passing through the House, and those of us who since then have read the debates which took place on the Act, will have been astonished by the eulogistic attitude displayed by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade towards the 1956 Act. He said that there had been broad party agreement on legislation of this type since the war. He declined to mention that his own party voted against the 1956 Act on a Reasoned Amendment.
I can well recollect the argument which raged in the House and in the Press. Hon. Members opposite denied that there was any room in a system for controlling restrictive practices for the activities of a court. They argued that these issues were not justiciable issues; they were the function of Parliament.

Mr. Douglas Jay: Perhaps I might remind the hon. Gentleman that the 1956 Act was much improved in Committee and on Report, thanks to the efforts of the then Opposition, and was a better Measure when it reached the Statute Book.

Mr. Jenkin: I shall be quoting from the Third Reading debate, which no doubt will lend weight to what the right hon. Gentleman has just said.
Looking at what was said on Second Reading with regard to matters of principle on which there was no change throughout the passage of the Bill, though there were many changes in detail, perhaps I can do no better than quote what was said on 6th March by the then legal spokesman for the Labour Party, Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas:
The Bill hands over to this court governmental and parliamentary power. All judgments are founded upon law or upon facts, but in this case the decision which really matters will be a decision founded neither upon law nor upon fact. It will be a political and economic decision."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th March, 1956; Vol. 549, c. 2030.]
Yet the President of the Board of Trade has told us today that the court still has an essential rôle to play in this legislation.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North, was not slow in his criticisms of the Bill. On Third Reading, after all the changes to which he has referred were made, he said:
… there is a danger that we shall simply have a series of decisions whitewashing the restrictive practices of industry".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1956; Vol. 554, c. 897.]
What an astonishing proposition. What is industry's main complaint about this legislation today? It complains of the extreme rigour of the law. The Confederation of British Industry repeatedly has made its view known to Governments of both parties. It regards this legislation with the utmost distaste. In a recent paper it pointed out how few of the agree-

ments have survived the procedures of the 1956 Act. The right hon. Gentleman referred to this in his speech. The Confederation said:
The position which faces firms who contemplate a new agreement today is even more forbidding. They know that they will eventually have to defend the agreement before the Court. They know that their chances of success are slender and that the effort they will have to make to present their case will be costly and a serious burden on their senior staff. Few agreements are likely to be so potentially attractive that they will justify such risks and uncertainties.
All that I can say is, some whitewashing!
Perhaps the most astonishing forecast was made by Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas when adverting to the chances of success that an agreement would have to negotiating the obstacles placed in its way by the Act. In the same speech, he said:
I do not believe that a single one of the multitude of agreements which come within Clause 5 could not be brought under one or other of the tests laid down in Clause 16."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th March, 1956; Vol. 549, c. 2030.]
What is the history? Only a tiny handful of agreements which have gone into the court have been approved. It might be said that a rich man has a greater chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven than has a price fixed of securing the approval of the Restrictive Practices Court.
I will not weary the House with any more prognostications of gloom and doom which emanated from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite during the passage of the 1956 Bill. They adverted to the prospective futility of the Bill; yet today we had a eulogy which showed that those prognostications were wholly without foundation. It would have been nice to have had some recognition of that from the President of the Board of Trade.
However, the right hon. Gentleman has provided perhaps the best evidence of the complete reversal of his attitude in the Government's own proposals in this Bill. He has come before the House not with massive provisions to tighten up the Act. Instead, in the first Clause, he proposes to exempt from the operations of the Act certain activities because the Act is operating too stringently. The major tightening that he proposes is one which was put before the House over four years ago by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath).
Perhaps it is difficult to measure the effects of the Act over the years. There is little doubt that many hundreds and perhaps thousands of agreements were abandoned and never appeared on the register at all. Many others have appeared on the register and, subsequently, were not defended. Many others have been varied to make them harmless. Many have been found contrary to public interest and have been declared void.
In his third report, the Registrar made some attempt to assess the results at that stage, and that took one up only to 1963. In paragraph 13, he said:
In some such industries there is clearly now keen competition between the former parties in price and in the various aspects of service.
In paragraph 14, he said:
The effect of the termination of agreements it some industries appears to be that large buyers can obtain competitive offers or discounts although any distributed price lists show few differences.
There is no doubt that the Act has had a soundly beneficial effect on the growth and increase of competition. It is bringing to consumers lower prices, greater choice and better service. It is bringing to industry a greater stimulus to higher efficiency, and to the country as a whole a more vigorous and competitive industrial environment.
Although it has been criticised by industry as being harsh and rigid with procedures which are narrow, legalistic, cumbersome and expensive, and although it has been criticised by some economists as operating too slowly, there is no doubt that the Act has been one of the outstanding legislative successes of the decade.
It has operated most successfully when there has been in the economy an atmosphere of growth and enterprise which characterised the now famous 13 years of Conservative government. The point was put very well by Sir Reginald Mathys, in an article in the Sunday Telegraph on 7th January of this year. He said:
The most important single fact to remember about monopolies and restrictive practices is that they are an inherent part of life, and the way to reduce their more harmful effects is to encourage enterprise and initiative, and so create a more positive climate in which it really pays the individual to be more efficient and outward looking than to be restrictive. Moral indignation is no help.

During the past two or three years, there has been a sight too much moral indignation and too little encouragement and incentive from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is evident that those attitudes are highly prevalent among Ministers today. Only on Sunday, the Secretary of State for Productivity and Employment exhorted the shopworkers' conference at Margate. As reported in yesterday's edition of The Times, she said:
Harold Wilson has put me in this job to find ways by which we can all help ourselves to an improvement in the quality of our lives within the context of the essential economic policy.
The right hon. Lady went on to say that the purpose of the new Department was to keep prices down by
not accepting slipshod methods or hollow excuses from anyone: manufacturers, retailers or nationalised industries.

Mr. Dan Jones: What is wrong with that?

Mr. Jenkin: With great respect, there is nothing wrong with it. We are waiting to see if it is simply more moral indignation, or is intended to be a serious contribution to our economic problems. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I will wait and see. Time alone will tell. The next six to nine months will show all too clearly and will provide the acid test of whether the right hon. Gentleman's fine words are anything more than mere pious verbiage.
Of one matter we can be certain, and it is that any success that there has been during the last two or three years in holding down prices has owed infinitely more to the Restrictive Trade Practices Act passed by my right hon. Friend Lord Thorneycroft, to the Resale Prices Act, piloted through the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley, and to the monopolies legislation, piloted through by both parties, than the whole rigmarole of the prices and incomes legislation which has been foisted on the country. There is plenty of evidence that that legislation and many other aspects of Government policy have been counter-productive. The prices and incomes legislation is not the only example. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman stood condemned—qui s'excuse s'accuse.
Businessmen are baffled and confused by the conflicting policies imposed on them by the Government. The Restrictive Trade Practices Act bans restrictive agreements. The National Board for Prices and Incomes recommends them. I need only refer the right hon. Gentleman to the Report on the bakers, which recommended the standardisation of types and shapes of bread by agreement between the bakers and the apportionment of bread rounds by the allocation of streets between different firms. If any bakers had attempted to indulge in that they would immediately have fallen foul of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, and I cannot think that any of those scheme would have been included in the Bill now before us.
The I.R.C. aims to promote mergers. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North insisted, despite pressure from both sides, on including in his Monopolies Bill the silly £5 million test which resulted in 250 mergers being referred to the Board of Trade and only eight to the Monopolies Commission. The Government asked for further rationalisation in the now defunct National Plan, and yet continued to demand keen competition. The Ministry of Technology seeks to avoid wasteful duplication by exchange of information on investment intentions in the chemical industry but the new Bill will now require the registration of information agreements of exactly the sort that the Ministry of Technology urged the industry to carry out.
I cannot do better than to quote the Economist of 12th November:
Like children whose parents have extreme and opposite views, businessmen are already confused by the non-creative tension between free trade sections of the government like the Board of Trade, and the more collectivist departments and quasi-departments like Neddy.
This is an example of the basic schizophrenia which characterises the Government's whole approach to economic problems and gives rise to great uncertainty in industry.
I am convinced that this is a very material factor in the widespread loss of confidence which has been so marked a feature in the last two or three years. There is a fundamental dilemma which will arise whenever a Socialist Government try to operate what is still substantially a free market economy. The late

Lord Attlee said that it was impossible. He said:
A Labour Government cannot run a market economy because they do not believe in it".
Of course he was right.
With some modesty I can claim to be one of the earliest who pointed out this basic inconsistency two years ago. On 17th February, 1966, I asked the then President of the Board of Trade whether he intended to amend the Restrictive Trade Practices Act to promote the rationalisation called for in the National Plan. I was answered by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling):
No, Sir. There is no a priori reason why rationalisation proposals designed to improve the competitive efficiency of industry need involve restrictive agreements."[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th February, 1966; Vol. 724, c. 1511]
It was a different story which was given today by the President. Now they have seen that this is necessary and Clause 1 is intended to solve the problem by giving the Board of Trade the power which the President described to the House. The right hon. Gentleman gave the background to this new power and the reasons why he thought it necessary. He emphasised, and I was glad that he did, the narrow and stringent limits within which the power is to be exercised.
It is right that one should offer some comment on this. The basic need for this power stems from two quite different causes which have emerged in recent years. One is outside the Government's control and one is within the Government's control. The first is the great surge in technical innovation which is going on all over the world in mass marketing and production, the growing importance of factors of scale of marketing, production and research, and the rapidly mounting costs of research. The second cause, within the control of the Government, is the growing pattern of intervention by Government in the long-term, medium-and short-term in the decisions of industry.
If one looks at the legislation brought before the House during the last three years the list is formidable. Corporation Tax, discriminating against distributed profits, the investment grants with an unreal distinction between manufacturing and services, the same unreal distinction is the S.E.T.——

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not a Budget debate. We must keep to the Bill.

Mr. Jenkin: I am attempting to argue, and I will come to it as quickly as I can, that the Bill arises as an inexorable result of the cumulative effect of the policies pursued by the Government.
We have had the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation building licences, restrictions on overseas investment, and all this represents a massive interference by the State with the working of a market economy. Every new measure which the Government introduces leads inexorably to the next. New disincentives require a new pattern of inducements. Money extracted from industry in one form has to be handed back in another. Fetters on competition in one sphere lead to demands for cartels in another.
If this rising tide of Government interference were the sole origin of Clause 1 we would have no hesitation from this side of the House in condemning it out of hand. As it is, the other cause, the growth of technical innovation, is also a major factor which cannot be ignored. It leads one to the belief that it is right that one should take a cool look at Clause 1 and its possible merits. After much heart-searching we on this side of the House have come to the conclusion that those who have sought this suspension of the operation of the 1956 Act may have a case.
The United Kingdom market is small by international standards. Large-scale industry needs to operate in huge units in many cases. I think particularly of the industry with which I am most familiar, the chemical industry, in which often only one plant may be necessary to meet the total United Kingdom requirements. Sometimes this can be achieved by merger, but sometimes only by phasing of investment or sometimes by one firm building and others buying from it.
In the latter two cases the 1956 Act even precludes conversations leading to what might appear desirable, yet this may be the only way of solving the problem. I believe that, on balance, this should not be automatically illegal. The President of the Board of Trade referred to the recommendations of the N.E.D.C. for "Little Neddies", I do not necessarily regard that as a guarantee of respectability. Producer interests un-

doubtedly dominate "Little Neddies" and they can lead to cartels just as easily as trade associations.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I wonder in this connection if the hon. Gentleman has studied the view of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on the reactor industry.

Mr. Jenkin: I have not given the matter the attention which the hon. Member has given to it, so perhaps he will forgive me if I do not follow him too far into that labyrinth for the one in which I am engaged is complicated enough.
It is very easy for "Little Neddies" to constitute a trap for Government which would lead one to equate the interests of a particular industry with the public interests. Therefore, it is right that there should be no general blanket consent for the schemes put up by the "Little Neddies". The full rigour of the 1956 Act should be reserved for all but a very few special cases. There may be a case for an occasional very special exemption, but how are we to secure that this shall not be a major breach in the dyke against the resurgence of restrictive practices? The Financial Times, a year ago, rightly said:
Economists tend to become suspicious whenever businessmen suggest that restrictive practices are justified.
I recognised in that a watered-down version of the famous dictum of Adam Smith who said, about 150 years ago:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices.
This attitude may be regarded by some as being over-suspicious, but in this field, I believe a healthy suspicion is the right attitude. I would add—and I am glad to have support from hon. Gentlemen opposite—doubly so when it is the Government, the Government of any party, who take upon themselves the function of being the arbiter. Having looked at this most carefully, I agree with the view of the Economist last month, which was that if there is to be such a power as is now contained in Clause 1
The Board of Trade solution is the only possible one.
I do not believe that we need necessarily conclude the Government have got


it right. In the meantime, perhaps the Minister of State, who is due to wind up this debate, could be a little more explicit about how this power is intended to be used.
What does this curious phrase—"national importance"—mean? I do not recollect having seen it in legislation before, although I may be wrong. How does it differ from "the national interest" or "the public interest"? Does it imply a certain size of project, or the importance of the product to the national economy? Does it imply the material or product which is to be produced is essential in British industry? Does it imply that it should be important in relation to the balance of payments? If so, what sort of saving have the Government in mind on this? Is it a project of national importance if it saves £10,000 a year on the balance of payments, or is it £100,000, £1 million or £10 million?
What safeguards will there be? How is the consumer to be protected from the exploitation which is one of the easiest pitfalls into which a restrictive agreement can lead? How are we to ensure that agreements of this sort are not used to shelter inefficiency or failure to innovate? How are we to ensure they are not used to preserve rather than readapt an outmoded industrial structure?
The President of the Board of Trade referred to the need to give a reasonable duration to these agreements. How is the Board of Trade to decide upon the duration, the situation which has created the need for the agreement in the first place, or the progress of the scheme which has been introduced under it? On these and, indeed, on many other points—some of them will no doubt be referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis)—we shall need to be satisfied before we would be prepared to let this Clause go on to the Statute Book.
The former President of the Board of Trade, when forecasting the Bill, said that he would use the power very sparingly. I would certainly hope so, but I do not believe that that, by itself, is enough. I suggest that he looks at some of these important safeguards which may make the power more acceptable in a competitive economy. I would suggest he takes a very hard look at tariffs for

instance. A cartel of the sort which the Bill envisages is just what might be dealt with by the sort of advice which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley referred to in his speech on the Government cuts on 18th January, when he said that the Government could conduct a
tariff review in those fields where monopoly is likely or possible."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 18th January, 1968, Vol. 756, c. 1966.]
Market-sharing arrangements, price stabilisation arrangements, agreements not to compete in certain fields can lead—and it is important to emphasise that in thousands of cases in this century have led—to the exploitation of consumers, to the misuse of resources, to sluggishness and lack of enterprise. It is essential that Clause 1 should not be allowed to become a vehicle for the return of old, bad habits, so recently eradicated after so much travail. The recent Report of the Monopolies Commission on "man-made cellulosic fibres" shows the harm that can be done if agreements—in that case with other European producers—are allowed to continue indefinitely against the public interest.
I would propose one more safeguard—and we shall move an Amendment to this effect in Committee—that the Clause itself, and not merely the Orders under it, should have a time limit. This must be only a temporary power for the Government. It stems basically from the fact that the British market is too small in which to allow the rationalisation which we all require to take place. All this is changed if we join the Common Market; if we find ourselves part of a giant Continental market I do not believe that there is a place for a dispensing power of this sort.
In short, we on this side of the House view this Clause with great reserve, verging on a deep suspicion and we require much more explicit information as to how it will work. We shall insist on full safeguards, and I must add that under no circumstances must the consent of the Board of Trade be accompanied by a demand for a shareholding in the venture. Nothing would be more guaranteed to ensure the permanence of an arrangement which is intended to be temporary than that the Government themselves should put money into it and become a shareholder.
I believe that the President of the Board of Trade may have made out a prima facie case for the Clause, but I that he will have to prove it categorically in Committee.
May I turn briefly to the rest of the Bill. Clause 4 is a welcome extension of Section 7(3) of the Act and would allow such valuable bodies as the Engineering Equipment Users' Association and the Oil Companies' Materials' Association to continue to operate without the need for registration.
Clause 6 seems to be a sensible Clause, establishing the need for registration before the agreement takes effect. We have looked at Clause 7 very carefully and I believe, on balance, this is necessary. No honest trader will object to the existence of sanctions on the dodger and it is certainly right to give the injured party a remedy in damages, although I believe that the President of the Board of Trade has been right to resist the temptation to imitate the Americans and introduce triple damages.
We note that the gateway in Clause 10 on restriction
does not directly or indirectly restrict or discourage competition to any material degree,
and it is not likely to do so. Again, we welcome that.
Finally, I come to Clause 5, which deals with information agreements. I must go into this at a little greater length. One of the Registrar's earliest complaints was that an information agreement was a method of circumventing the 1966 Act, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley's White Paper of 1964 indicated an intention to legislate. It is unfortunate that there has been so long a delay on this matter.
The basic slag case in 1963 represented a very great extension of the interpretation of what constitutes an arrangement—and that is a technical word. Under the 1956 Act, this was a considerable extension of the law and it has the effect of making a great many information agreements—certainly any of those that constitute restriction—registrabl under the Act.
One learned commentator, in a fascinating article in the Modern Law Review on this subject, has even suggested that no further legislation is necessary, because the basic slag case and the mean-

ing given to "arrangement" is adequate to catch all the information agreements that one would want to strike at. I disagree with this because we are introducing here new penalties for failure to register, and it is necessary that it should be clear beyond a peradventure what the agreements are that require to be registered. Industries and firms must not be put into grave doubt as to whether their agreements are registrable or not. However, I do believe that Clause 5 may have gone further than the circumstances of the case require. I recognise that at the moment it is merely an empowering Clause and the categories of information agreement will have to be brought before the House in a Statutory Instrument.
I would ask the President of the Board of Trade to give some thought to this, and perhaps the Minister of State might comment on it in winding up. Why is it necessary to go beyond information agreements regarding prices, terms and conditions, which include discounts, rebates, and so on? The right hon. Gentleman has included in the Bill agreements on information about quantities, descriptions, costs, processes, customers, areas, and so on. At first sight, I believe that he has gone much wider than is necessary. If Orders are brought forward relative to these agreements, the right hon. Gentleman will sweep into the net, and compel the registration of, tens of thousands of entirely commonplace, harmless commercial agreements.
One example is a price list which offers quantity discounts. It is easy to postulate an agreement that the same discounts are to be offered to all customers of the trader. That, therefore, will be caught. The licensor of a process who licenses his process to several firms and provides for an exchange of technical information is clearly caught, if such agreements are brought forward. Take the case of trade associations, which goes even further. The Confederation of British Industry provides the Board of Trade with the names of chemical manufacturers. The President of the Board of Trade may not have realised it, but that may be a registrable agreement.
If the Scotch Whisky Association—I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) has left—agrees to give a Member of Parliament figures of the production and


sales of Scotch whisky, that will be a registrable agreement. This goes very much too far and I do not believe that the House ought to give the Board of Trade these powers.
There is a further difficulty, Subsection (2) provides for what is to be the effect of these agreements—how they are to be interpreted—by the device of a statutory hypothesis that the information agreement is deemed to be a restriction. In other words, the court, if the agreement ever comes before the court, will not be required to consider the information agreement which actually exists, but an entirely different agreement containing a hypothetical restriction of a different scope.
The query to which we must have an answer is: how will the gateways in Section 21 apply to Rich a hypothetical restriction? If the agreement is already restrictive, such as an agreement to inform about proposed price increases, which is clearly restrictive, the hypothesis is quite unnecessary. If the agreement is not a restrictive one, it cannot be made a restrictive one, or at any rate not so as to be amenable to the provisions of Section 21. It just will not work. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman will have to look at the Clause very carefully again, because I believe that it is misconceived.
We recognise that something needs to be done. We recognise that it is entirely unclear as to what are the agreements that ought to be registered as embodying a restriction, but we do not believe that the President of the Board of Trade has hit on the right answer yet. Surely what is important here is that the mere provision of information is a perfectly harmless activity. What is damaging to the economy is the misuse of that information.
I want to quote a statement by a very distinguished judge in an American case—United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in 1948:
The Sherman Antitrust Law does not…force men to buy or sell without knowledge of what they must compete against.
In the absence of any combination or agreement or conspiracy in restraint of trade … manufacturing competitors may legally exchange current price lists and cost information …
A manufacturer may legally ask competitors whether the information he has received from his salesmen … is accurate, and he may,

if he wishes, legally make such information or portions of it available to competitors.
So long as these activities are done for the purpose of gaining or exchanging accurate information concerning current market conditions, they are normal and necessary to the running of the business and are not unlawful.
"Unlawful" is in the context of the American antitrust law, but if we substituted "harmful" for "unlawful" that doctrine could well be transported to this country. I believe that that is the right objective. I cannot believe that it is right to clutter up the Register with a great welter of agreements which by no stretch of the imagination could be regarded as restrictive. I suggest that between today and the Committee stage the right hon. Gentleman takes the Clause back and has another very careful look at it to ensure that he is not asking Parliament for a power which is unnecessarily wide.
I want to end by joining the right hon. Gentleman in paying a tribute to the Registrar and his staff, who perform what is now an essential function in any modern industrial state. They have proved that the Act can work, and work well, despite the grim forebodings of right hon. and hon. Members opposite a decade ago.
Much of the Bill is welcome. Some of it is overdue. Some of it is right in aim but wrong in method. Some of it must be viewed with suspicion. In the meanwhile, while we cannot offer it more than a moderate welcome for itself, we can recognise, with a rather greater warmth, that it represents a most notable conversion of the Labour Party to a system to which, only 12 years ago, it appeared to take very grave exception.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on his typical flexibility of mind and approach in introducing this revising legislation to the 1956 Act. The intention is to assist the Government in improving in present circumstances the effective working of the prices and incomes policy—particularly, I should have thought, the prices leg of that policy—and in some special circumstances, where the previous legislation is perhaps working against rather than for industrial efficiency, to assist that efficiency.
The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin), who, as usual, made an interesting speech, was just a little plaintive when he complained that the Conservative Party had not been praised for bringing in the 1956 legislation. If that is all that is required, I suppose that most of us would be prepared to say immediately that the Conservative Administration did at least one, or even two, good things during the years that it was in office.
To be serious, in the 1950s there was a great movement of opinion against restrictive trade practices in general. Some of it, but not all of it, was well informed. There is always a fashion in these things, and today perhaps the pendulum has swung a little in the other direction. Many of us concede that, although the 1956 Act was generally good and has probably increased industrial and commercial efficiency all round, it has not always at the same time improved the extent of consumer or customer choice.
I can give an example from the heavy electrical engineering plant industry, of which I have some small personal knowledge. A decade ago there were more heavy electrical engineering firms in Britain—in turbines, cables, transformers, switchgear, and so on—than exist today. There were at that time many ring prices and restrictive agreements which indirectly often helped quality and which certainly aided research. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that those agreements kept smaller, and not always very efficient, firms in existence, not that I am arguing all the time that every small firm is necessarily inefficient.
Now, due to the effect of the 1956 Act and of parallel economic trends, over the last decade there has been a large number of amalgamations and mergers in the heavy electrical engineering plant industry, the latest and most remarkable of which is the merger between A.E.I. and the General Electric Company. The result, we hope, is certainly much greater efficiency, but it has hardly increased customer choice.
As the hon. Gentleman was prepared to accept for chemicals, we could easily soon reach the paradoxical situation where for heavy electrical plant in this country there is a single publicly-owned monopoly buyer served by a single privately-owned monopoly supplier. The net result may be to

increase all-round efficiency, but, as I say, it does not necessarily result in greater customer choice.
However, my intention is not to speak about technology, tempting as that normally is to me, but rather to give shortly some of the experiences of the Co-operative movement, in which I have an interest, of the working out of the 1956 Act. The devotion of consumers' co-operation in this country to the principle of sharing trading profits among members according to the extent of their purchases is well known.
It was on that historic principle that the retail Co-operative movement in this country was founded, has grown, and largely holds its supporters today. But an interesting example of one of the anomalies that can arise under this kind of legislation is that when the Co-operative Union, some time ago, advised its members, the retail societies, that they should stick to dividends and avoid the temptation of gift stamps it was rebuked by the Registrar. That is rather like ticking of a bishop for advising his clergy that they should continue to extol the traditional advantages of virtue.
It was the opinion of the Co-operative Union that it was not Parliament's intention in 1956 to inhibit recommendations of a general character on matters of public interest given by a trade association to its members. But in a letter from the Assistant Registrar to the Union two statements by the Co-operative Union were quoted as evidence of the need to register a restrictive practice in the circumstances I have mentioned. They were:
Approaches from trading stamp companies should, therefore, be firmly declined
and:
Stand firm against the introduction of gift stamps.
This does not sound very restrictive to me.
I appreciate that this is probably a Committee point, but the issue is really over the interpretation of Section 6 (7) of the 1956 Act. The question is whether the term "goods" should be interpreted widely or narrowly. From the point of view of the Co-operative movement this is a difficulty because, as is well known, the Co-operative societies do not deal only in goods but render a wide range of services. One can get one's hair cut by the Co-op or be buried by the


Co-op as well as buying one's groceries there.
However, the Co-operative Union took the very plain hint of the Registrar and has registered its so-called agreement. The question I want to put shortly is whether this new revising legislation should not give commonsense relief, which I think is necessary, on such a point. I am doubtful that Clause 1 or Clause 2 will help very much, but that can be explored further in Committee. Clause 10 might provide grounds for defence in proceedings before the court but it is bound to be a rather negative and cumbersome procedure under the terms in which the Clause is drawn.
I said at the beginning of my speech that I am sure the House will congratulate my right hon. Friend and welcome the Bill if it will do something to bring about greater stability in prices by collective trade action. But it is a pity that the opportunity has not apparently been taken to give more general relief where it is necessary in the light of the experience of the working of the 1956 Act. For the Co-operative movement it is not just a question of trading stamps as against the traditional dividend policy. There are other issues, such as the rationalisation of milk and bread deliveries, which seemed to be brushed aside by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wanstead and Woodford as unnecessary. I believe that there is a very strong case for such rationalisation. That was certainly the view of the Davies inquiry into milk distribution and of the Prices and Incomes Board in its report on bread prices.
It is surely perfectly consistent to oppose monopoly and restrictive trade practices in general and where competition is beneficial while arguing at the same time for sensible rationalisation in parts of the economy where this will also be in the general public interest. That is the view of the Co-operative movement, which has had, and continues to have, vast experience in milk distribution and of bread production. But the intentions of the Davies inquiry and the Prices and Incomes Board in this matter cannot be applied, because of the restrictive trade practices legislation which stands in the way.
The Bill was an opportunity to look at a number of anomalies which have appeared in the 1956 legislation in the light of experience. It was an opportunity to remove some of the absurdities which have arisen and which were not intended by the House, I am sure. It is a pity that the opportunity has not been taken as far as I can judge.
Nevertheless, I join with those who will yet take part in the debate, I hope from this side of the House, and, perhaps, the other side, in welcoming the Bill as a step forward.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis: As it would appear that this is to be a short debate, the Minister of State will appreciate that this may involve my reiterating some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin). I make no apology for that. I have found in my comparatively short sojourn in this House that sometimes Bills of very considerable significance pass by without a great deal of comment. Not being a member of the legal profession, I would add that sometimes phrases that do not attract a great deal of attention in Bills turn out to be of particular importance when they are interpreted in the courts.
My first comment is on the general attitude of the parties and the country toward restrictive practices and this Bill. The President of the Board of Trade went a long way towards paying tribute to his predecessor, Lord Thorneycroft, and the success of his Measure. He said that there was a degree of agreement between the parties on this Bill and on the attitude to restrictive agreements.
I am not at all sure that we are not reaching a watershed in this direction, and that the attitudes of the parties are beginning to diverge, not because my hon. Friends and myself are changing our attitudes, but because the interventionist outlook of the Government inevitably leads them to find themselves from time to time not only thwarted by, but perhaps in conflict with, market forces, and therefore, anxious to free themselves from the restrictions of the type of legislation embodied in the 1956 Act.
The President of the Board of Trade was very frank in his comments as to


what lay behind Clause 1. He went to some length to emphasise the fact that there would be very few occasions, and they would be very exceptional—to paraphrase what he said—when the Clause would be used. Surely, if the occasions are to be so few, and if the nature of those occasions is to be so unusual or of such significance, would it not be better, rather than cast doubts upon the whole basic attitude of the Government, for these to be dealt with by special legislation?
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I come from that part of the country, Lancashire, with which successive holders of his office have been very much concerned. He used the phrase—and I hope I am being fair to him—that a new factor was that the Government did not believe that the unaided working of market forces would always bring about the desired structural changes. This is not entirely a novel concept, because the Textile Reorganisation Act was produced precisely to bring about structural changes more quickly and less painfully, and perhaps more definitely than market forces could have done.
It was done by means of a special individual Measure which could be debated in this House and where the merits of the decision could be fully discussed before action was taken. There is a case to be answered as to why it is necessary to embody in general legislation, in general terms, provisions that could be covered by special legislation, since it appears that there are occasions when the House is not over-pressed for time.
We should realise the extent to which the 1956 Act achieved the purpose for which it was introduced. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford, I was not in this House when the Act was passed, and I have been reading and studying the debates. It is fair to say that on a technical, complicated and somewhat controversial subject, it is remarkable how well the then President of the Board of Trade framed his legislation in order to achieve the desired purpose. Although it is perhaps too much to say that the 1956 Act changed the mood of industry, it is very important when discussing amendments, to recognise that the Act confirmed and reinforced the trend, which at that time was none too firmly established.
Some of the quotations that we have heard support that. The trend was to view it as a prima facie operation against the public interests to enter into an agreement in restriction of competition. At that time, there was still a very wide fear of unemployment, and there was a persistent belief in many quarters, not confined to one political party, that in some way it was competition and not lack of demand that created unemployment. If we have learned one lesson since 1956, it is that periods of excess home demand have led eventually to unemployment and that a lack of competition, or at any rate an inability to be sufficiently competitive, has been a danger to the success of our economy and the maintenance of full employment.
I would like to put on record that I believe that any unemployment we may suffer in future is more likely to result from over-cossetting ourselves against the competition than from over-exposure to it. The 1956 Act has stood the test of time and changing circumstances well. This is nowhere more evident than in the reports of the Registrar of the Restrictive Practices Court. Those reports make fascinating reading. I am quite certain that industrial historians in future, and perhaps even the Minister of State, if he ever undertakes an historical work of this kind, will find the reports of the Registrar to be most fascinating reflections of industrial practices in this country in the period since the war.
Experience has shown that certain amendments are desirable. The intentions of the last Government were set out in the White Paper of March, 1964. Some have been incorporated in the Bill. Certain provisions in the Bill arise directly from the recommendations of the Registrar. Clause 5, for instance, relates to information agreements which were the subject of comment in the White Paper, and on a number of occasions by the Registrar. I would like to echo the remarks of my hon. Friend and ask the Minister of State if he could be a little more explicit as to the type of agreements he envisages might require the invoking of the full provisions of Clause 5. Some of them seem to be designed to restrict activities which have been encouraged, and thought desirable by successive Governments.
I cannot see why subsection (1)(d) of Clause 5 should be in the Bill and I would


like the Minister of State to give us further information as to why a simpler Clause, restricted more to prices and terms and conditions of sale, would not have met the purpose. Clause 10 was foreshadowed in the then Government's White Paper of March, 1964, and in the Report of the Registrar of the Restrictive Practices Court. I have certain reservations on the effect that Clause 10 will have on restrictive practices agreements. I hope that I am wrong, I do not attribute any deep design to the right hon. Gentleman, but I just feel that this innocent, small Clause may well be subject to a very wide range of interpretations when it comes to be considered by the Restrictive Practices Court.
I wonder whether the intentions behind it will be best served by the wording of subsection (1)(h). My first reaction to the Clause was that it was very negative in its approach. I felt that the layman in industry looking at the Clause, wondering whether to become a party to an agreement, might feel that all he would need to do to justify the agreement would be simply to declare before the court that the agreement would not restrict competition, and that the onus would then lie with the Registrar to prove that it would.
This was my first reading, as a layman, of the Clause. I then spoke to my learned friends in the legal profession, who took an exactly opposite view. They drew my attention to the opening words of Section 21 of the 1956 Act and to the concluding paragraph of that Section. They said that the onus would be on the party to the agreement to show that there was no restriction of competition. They then went on to say that the establishment before a court of a negative situation such as Clause 10 demanded of the party to the agreement was perhaps the most difficult thing of all to do. So we had gone full circle.
My initial thought was that it might be easy for the party to an agreement to throw the onus on the Registrar. I was then given the opinion that it would be most difficult even in the most simple cases for the party to the agreement to establish it, and I then thought that instead of opening the door too wide the clause would not open it sufficiently or at all. Finally, there came into my mind the words of the Lord Chancellor, in the

House of Lords debate on Second Reading, about Clause 21 of the 1956 Act. I should like to quote these at length, because I do not consider myself to be an authority on these matters, and I make that quite clear to the Minister of State, but I feel that this is a clause which might produce a much greater effect than is appreciated.
The Lord Chancellor said:
What the parties to the agreement will have to do here is to show, in the first place, that the restriction comes within certain exceptions, which the Bill defines, to the general principle laid down by Parliament that restraint of competition is prima facie against the public interest. I submit that all reasonable grounds of pleading are covered by paragraphs (a) to (g). They mean that a restriction must confer some specific—I repeat, specific—benefit, or prevent some specific—again I repeat, specific—harm. A specific benefit would be, for example, the promotion of the interests of consumers to the development of better techniques by co-operative research.
That is a point my hon. Friend commented upon.
A specific harm would be the prevention of abuse of economic power by a dominating buyer or seller, or the adverse effects of export trade or on the general level—I emphasise 'general level'—of unemployment in an area."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th June, 1956; Vol. 198, c. 17.]
If Clause 21 of the 1956 Act is examined it is seen to be entirely different in the justiciable issues it lays down from the present Clause 10, and I hope that the Government are confident that when this Clause comes to be interpreted by the court it will not have effects far beyond what they are anticipating, or that it will not be so difficult for the party to an agreement to establish or validate that it will be of little use at all.
Another point about the construction of the Bill is that for the first time it reverses the trend towards recognising that the efficient use of economic resources depends upon the existence or the creation of competitive conditions. I am not trying to be provocative, but I think it fair to say that hon. Gentlemen opposite would want to qualify this by saying that this is so outside the public sector.
That certainly is the principle upon which the 1956 Act is based and this underlying attitude is very clearly reflected again in Section 21 of that Act,


what I call the overriding provisions—which I will return to later—where it says that
a restriction accepted in pursuance of any agreement shall be deemed to be contrary to the public interest unless the Court is satisfied of any one or more of the following circumstances …
and unless
the restriction is not unreasonable having regard to the balance between those circumstances and any detriment to the public or to persons not parties to the agreement (being purchasers, consumers or users of goods …
I feel that the omission of that type of overriding consideration from Clause 1 is a reason for regarding it with some degree of suspicion.
I think that we can say also that the introduction of Clause 1 goes directly contrary to the legislation to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred—the monopolies and mergers legislation, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and certainly the European Free Trade Area Convention, as well as the underlying attitude which gave rise to the Kennedy Round negotiations. All these operate and, I believe, were intended to operate to secure the efficient use of economic resources by the existence or creation of competitive conditions.
Here, in Clause 1, we find the Government taking a step in the exactly opposite direction and I believe, in view particularly of what the right hon. Gentleman said, that this is a decision taken directly by the Government because they feel that a more interventionist policy is justified, that this removes the Bill from the category of a minor Measure and gives it a good deal more consequence than has been appreciated.
The circumstances which are given in Clause 1 as justifying a restrictive trade agreement are comletely different from those in Section 21 of the 1956 Act. So far as I am aware, they are circumstances to which no reference is made in any of the previous legislation—in the Monopolies and Mergers Act or in the international agreements to which I have referred. That is why I think that this Clause requires a full and detailed explanation and justification by the Government.
There is one particular feature of the Clause which, I think, is certainly in

accord with a trend in the Government's legislation and particularly, I am afraid, the legislation brought before the House by t Board of Trade. It is the trend towards the extension of administrative direction and administrative discretion. My hon. Friend has referred to the Bills which have been brought forward in this Parliament which, over and over again, have given a widened field of administrative discretion to the Board of Trade.
In this particular case, it is not only that in Clause 1 the Board of Trade has taken unto itself administrative discretion, but, as the President has said quite frankly and openly, that it is administrative discretion which may well arise and be exercised as a result of administrative or executive direction or pressure brought upon industry by the Board of Trade or by the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues. I think that in view of this double conjunction of administrative direction and discretion the Government should consider very carefully whether some provision should not be made for the public interest to be represented at some stage in the operation of this clause. The Registrar represents the public interest element in hearings before the Restrictive Practices Court.
As I understand, it is quite possible under Clause 1 for the machinery to operate in such a way that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade feels that, as he would put it, some structural change in industry is required and that this can only be brought about by an agreement between industrial concerns which would constitute a restrictive agreement under the terms of the 1956 Act, and, therefore, the matter is considered and an Order is made by the President of the Board of Trade giving approval to that agreement.
The right hon. Gentleman used a phrase in his speech which touched upon a point I was going to introduce here when he said, I think, that in normal circumstances the Order would be laid before the House. I am relying on my memory: he made a very lucid speech with little repetition and I think that he said that in normal circumstances an Order resulting from Clause 1 would be laid before the House.
What are the circumstances in which the Order would not be laid before the


House? Is the Minister referring to the special section of the register kept by the Board of Trade or by the Registrar of the Restrictive Practices Court? Is he referring to agreements involving export or national interests which under the present procedures would be kept in the special section of the court's register? If he is, it is very likely that a high proportion of these Orders would not be laid before the House.
Surely the sort of situation which would justify what the right hon. Gentleman said would be an exceptional procedure for matters of very considerable importance would be such that the whole purpose of the operation could be jeopardised if the agreement was laid before the House and would be just the type of agreement which would qualify for inclusion in the special section of the register kept under the 1956 Act. I ask the Minister of State to make this point clear.
That brings me to Clause 1(5), which deals with the question of laying a copy of any Order before each House of Parliament. It is not bringing Parliament very closely into supervision of the actions of the Executive to bring it in at the tail end of this procedure. Members are quite right to be vigilant in this type of matter. Here we have a procedure which from start to finish may be carried on in private—I will not say in secret—and which culminates in laying an Order before the House, but not in such a way that it requires the affirmative resolution procedure or is subject to the negative Resolution procedure. I understand that this is purely an informative action under the Statutory Instruments Act making the Order available to the House. This sequence suggests that there must be a better and safer procedure to follow to achieve the right hon. Gentleman's rather doubtful objective.
I contrast the wording of the criteria in Clause 1 with the clarity and exactness of the criteria in Section 21 of the 1956 Act. This is an indication of the difference in attitude between the present Government and the Government of that day. The Government who introduced the 1956 Measure laid down justiciable issues in language which surely the experience of the Restrictive Practices Court has shown was clear, definite and easily interpetable. The language of Clause 1(2) is of the

woolliest kind. It is just as well that it is the President of the Board of Trade who will interpret the powers which he is giving himself in this Clause, because any legal court would have great difficulty in doing so.
I take particular exception to the use of the phrase "national interest". The phrase "public interest" is used in Section 21 of the 1956 Act. As far as I can see, it is used invariably. Never is the phrase "national interest" used. I have always felt that the "public interest" was what the public regarded as being its own interest and in the achievement of which it could often count on the support of the courts. I regard the "national interest" as something which Governments regard as in the interests of the public and impose on the public, whether it requires it or not.
It is significant that the wording of the original announcement and the replies to Parliamentary Questions made by the Minister was different. Then we had reference to agreements which were "positively beneficial to the national economy". I do not know whether that is any more exact, but I prefer it to the phrase "national interest".
The Bill has certain features which are unexceptionable and generally acceptable. However, it contains a number of disquieting provisions about which the President of the Board of Trade has not allayed our apprehensions. Although he is comparatively new to his office, this is not a new field for the Minister of State, and, since he has plenty of time available, I look forward to listening to him. Perhaps he will reply to the points of substance made with clarity by my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford and the points which I have endeavoured to make, perhaps with less clarity, in such a way that the Committee stage will be even more constructive and perhaps a little more abbreviated than would otherwise have been the case.
The Bill will benefit from and will receive a constructive examination in Committee, although I do not altogether accept the right hon. Gentleman's feeling that, since perhaps his intentions are good, the Bill will be accepted as not having the fundamental significance to which I feel it may give rise.

5.26 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell): I should be glad to think, after this surprisingly short debate considering the importance of the subject, that I could give an answer today which would make it possible to discount the Committee stage altogether, but I am afraid that, despite what I say in answer to the questions raised, we shall have a Committee stage. I thank hon. Members opposite for indicating the sort of points which they will raise in Committee. This will give us an opportunity to consider them between now and the Committee stage.
I expected that hon. Members opposite would not miss the opportunity to give a paeon of praise to the 1956 Act. Obviously, that legislation having worked very successfully for the last 12 years and having cleared away the vast majority of restrictive agreements which existed at that time, the sensible thing to do is to build on that legislation, to accept the success which it has had, to improve it in the respects which the Bill proposes and not to change the basis of restrictive legislation. Nevertheless, there was a genuine debate in 1956, and not a debate which had a clear and definite answer, namely, whether one should proceed by judicial review or administrative review.
There are clear advantages in those two methods. Different countries have used one or other of them. We have used the judicial method, and it has been successful. That does not mean that the other method would not have been successful. One of the interesting things about the Bill is that it provides for a greater degree of administrative discretion than was embodied in the 1956 Act, because experience has shown that it is necessary to have a degree of administrative discretion in operating legislation against restrictive practices.
Hon. Members opposite have said that they view Clause 1 with some suspicion, but that they accept it. The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) gave two reasons why Clause 1 might be necessary. He was very unhappy about the reason which related to the Government's industrial policy. The other reason related to what he called the growth of technological innovation. He accepted that as a

reason for some such power as exists in Clause 1.
Although we have had a very rapid rate of technological innovation in 1968, we did also in 1956. Many of the characteristics of our industrial society which are present today were present in 1956. For example, 1968 is not the first year in which we have heard of information agreements. All these things could have been dealt with in the 1956 Act. We have to deal with them now.
The main lesson of today's debate is the importance of providing in this legislation for administrative discretion to create some degree of flexibility in operating this type of legislation.
One of the consequences of choosing the judicial review procedure in the 1956 legislation was that there had to be a presumption in favour of competition and that restrictive agreements were against the public interest. That presumption had to be in the legislation so that the court could have a basis upon which to operate. No doubt that presumption was right in the conditions of 1956. But equally—and this is an inevitable consequence of this presumption, and the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis), in talking about Clause 10, expressed anxiety about this presumption which will still exist in the operation of the Restrictive Practices Court—this presumption means that it is a difficult, costly and very uncertain procedure to secure exemption, even for beneficial restrictive agreements.
Apparently it is now accepted on both sides that there are certain types of restrictive agreement which can be beneficial and which, therefore, in some way, have to be provided for. This is what we are doing in this legislation. Industry has asked us to do this. Industry has expressed disquiet about the operation of this legislation and has suggested that there should be some sort of adminstrative discretion vested in the Board of Trade. This is what we are doing now.
Of course, I accept what the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford said about this sort of representation from industry. It has to be looked at with considerable care, because obviously it is self-interested representation, and industry may not have as good a case as it argues.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman by implication is chiding my right hon. Friends for not having recognised the need for this power in 1956. But he will remember—and I quoted what was said to me by his predecessor only two years ago—that in the view of the Government there was no need for this power. Surely this is totally inconsistent.

Mr. Dell: What was said in relation to mergers is somewhat different from what has to be embodied in legislation regarding restrictive practices. Concerning the suspicion of the purposes or intentions of industry, to which expression was given, particularly by the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford, it has to be remembered that in the 1956 Act not all restrictive agreements had to be registered. Provision was made in that Act for certain types of agreement not to be registered. Indeed, reference has been made to the provision regarding standards and the fact that in the Bill we are extending that provision—again on the representations of industry which thinks it important we should do so. These were the types of agreement which did not have to be registered under the 1956 Act and are included in Sections 7 and 8 of that Act.
Equally, even in the 1956 Act, room was provided for, at any rate, some element of precisely the kind of administrative discretion that excites such suspicion in the mind of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale. For example, Section 7(1) gave administrative discretion regarding iron and steel, and Section 12 gave administrative discretion to the Board of Trade regarding insignificant agreements. The question really is where the line regarding administrative discretion has to be drawn.
The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford asked what safeguards there would be in the operation of Clause 1. I accept that it is important there should be safeguards, but safeguards are embodied in the Bill and no doubt we can consider them further in Committee.
First, there is the safeguard by making reference to the national interest. I will come later to the question of what "the national interest" means. This is a limiting criterion and in itself provides a safeguard. There are other conditions laid down relating to the exercise of the powers in Clause 1. Where the object

cannot otherwise be achieved in a reasonable time, exemption is provided for a limited time. The restrictions must be no more than necessary and there will be publicity of the fact that there is an exception, and exemption orders and copies of exempted agreements will be laid before Parliament.
The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale asked what the exemptions were and he correctly indicated their nature. He said that the public interest should be represented in this procedure. It is agreed—and I understood it to be agreed by the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford—that the only body that can do this job is the Board of Trade. Together with the other safeguards and the publicity which will be given to its decisions, I consider that the safeguards in Clause 1 will prove adequate.
I am asked what "national importance" means. Reference was made to possible criteria of "national importance". Such criteria, for example, are the size of the project, the size of the industry and its importance to our balance of payments. There are other criteria which might be of importance in this regard, such as the fact that there has been a report by the National Board for Prices and Incomes. We will have to judge in the light of the circumstances.
The object of the Clause is to provide flexibility. It would not be sensible, when one is providing this degree of flexibility subject, as it is, to the safeguards to which I have referred, to immediately start limiting it to an undesirable degree. This, again, was one of the problems with the 1956 Act. One cannot always meet the wishes of lawyers to have everything cut and dried. But I think that here we are providing a useful flexibility together with adequate safeguards.
None of this implies that the Registrar and the Restrictive Practices Court have not done a first-class job. They have. For this reason we are building in the other section of the Bill, strengthening the powers against restrictive practices. We are meeting the representations made by the Registrar in his fourth report about current inadequacies of the legislation. We are meeting most, though not all, of the points which he thinks should be improved by subsequent legislation. Some of the points that he makes have been met since he made that report


by the decision of the court in certain cases, which will be known to hon. Members, to impose very severe fines where there were agreements in like effect.
There is also the new fact that there is now no significant backlog of cases. Therefore, new agreements can be rapidly brought before the court. Therefore, in essence we are meeting the points made by the Registrar about the ways in which the current legislation should be strengthened.
I was asked specifically about information agreements, and reference was made to the Basic Slag case. It was suggested that some people thought the Basic Slag case made it unnecessary to have this provision regarding information agreements. We do not take that view. Indeed, the 1964 White Paper, published by the party opposite, made it clear that while they were in power they did not take that view. We think it is necessary to have this Clause for a variety of reasons, among which is the need for certainty regarding what is registrable. In deciding what is registrable, we will have full consultation with those who might be concerned.
I was asked by the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford why in this respect we were going beyond agreements covering prices. He listed a whole series of desirable information agreements which he feared might be called up under this Clause. I think that those fears are rather exaggerated.
We have here what is in fact merely an enabling Clause under which we will call up by Order. These Orders will be made only after the fullest consultation to ensure that as far as possible we do not call up desirable information agreements. We have inserted in the legislation—this is the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale—the new material effect gateway in Clause 10 because, as has been made clear on many occasions, including by the Registrar, if we are proposing to call up information agreements, we must have a material effect gateway. If we do not, it will make the practice of the court very difficult in respect of information agreements.
Under Section 12 as it will be when amended by the Bill we will have new powers in respect of insignificant restric-

tions. We decided that we must have power to call up information agreements other than those covering prices because there is a danger—and it is a danger against which we are right to safeguard ourselves—that other kinds of information agreements could, in certain circumstances, be a cover for agreements relating to prices.
However, on this point as on others, if hon. Gentlemen opposite have doubts which they wish to discuss in Committee we shall be glad to consider them all because we have no desire other than to make the legislation as good as it can possibly be.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) asked about recommendations by the Co-operative Union. I should like to give a considered answer after I have read exactly what my hon. Friend said. My immediate reaction is that a recommendation by the Co-operative Union to its members about the conditions under which they should supply goods, for example, that they should not give trading stamps, is registrable. Whether it will be let out by Clause 9(2), as
not of such significance as to call for investigation
will be for consideration in the first instance by the Registrar. I cannot say that it would be. It would almost certainly not qualify under Clause 1 dealing with administrative exemptions for agreements of national importance.

Mr. Palmer: The Co-operative Union is not seeking any special privilege, but its dividend policy is fundamental to its whole method of trading. It is bound up with its philosophy.

Mr. Dell: I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend. I should like to give it further consideration when I have read exactly what he said.
This is a useful Bill. It looks as though it will prove to be, at any rate in part, non-partisan, and I hope that we can proceed with it with the support of the whole House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

CIVIL EVIDENCE BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 60A (Second Reading Committee) That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

AGRICULTURE (INDUSTRIAL TRAINING LEVY)

5.44 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I beg to move:
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Industrial Training Levy (Agricultural, Horticultural and Forestry) Order 1967 (Amendment) Order 1968 (S.I., 1968, No. 343), dated 7th March 1968, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be annulled.
It is unusual to start discussing a Prayer at a quarter to Six in the evening, and I am delighted that we have enough time to debate in full whether this Order should be annulled.
Not long ago we debated the original Order which Order now being discussed amends. At that time many arguments were put forward from this side of the House, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells), to show why the Order was a bad one, and why the cost involved was too high. The Parliamentary Secretary replied to the debate. He was adamant that it was necessary to maintain the levy at that level, that the work of the Board would be worth while, and that it was essential to maintain it. Not long after that the hon. Gentleman came back to the House and said that, having had second thoughts, he had decided to reduce the level of the levy, hence this Order.
I do not wish to weary the House by going through all the arguments which we put forward last time to show that the level of the levy was far in excess of anything that was needed. We said that there should not be an Agricultural Trading Board, but that if there had to be one it should not operate at the level

proposed by the Government. The strength of feeling throughout the country, and particularly in the farming industry, is the reason why the Parliamentary Secretary has changed his mind and reduced the rate of levy.
The arguments which we advanced on the previous occasion still hold good. The plans put forward by the Board are such that they do not warrant the money which it is proposed to provide. This is one reason why I am seeking to have the Order annulled. I have not heard any argument in support of any levy at all.
The Government have had to spend quite a lot of money to keep the Board in operation. Producers are being asked to provide money for the Board, but they want to know what they will get in return. If they were to receive something worthwhile in return, something which would improve efficiency in the industry, they would not object to the levy, but many of the plans put forward by the Board are impractical. It does not make sense to suggest that an industry which consists of a number of small farmers can have its apprentices trained in the way suggested by the Board.
Let me consider the amount of money that is required. Although the levy is now £3 instead of £6, it is still too high for the benefits which the industry will reap. The Minister will probably say that this is a necessary scheme, that the industry must contribute a certain amount towards it, that it will help young farmers to become better trained and make them more efficient and increase their productivity. He will no doubt say that it is necessary for the Board to raise the money in this way.
I think that the House will agree that unless the Minister can show conclusively that this levy will increase productivity in the industry he has no case for imposing it. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone has been unavoidably detained. I know that if he were here he would be much more severe in his strictures on the Board and on the idea of having a levy. I do not know quite how far he would have gone, but he might even have called for the Minister's resignation——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): Order. It is not in order on this Prayer to debate the desirability or


otherwise of the Order, or the desirability or otherwise of the levy. It is in order only to discuss whether the proposed levy should be reduced from £6 to £3.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I accept what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the fact is that I want the Minister to reduce it from £6 to nil. Presumably the Board will use the levy to carry out some functions. I am querying those functions, and, indeed, I am querying whether the Board should exist at all. If the levy was reduced to nil, it would be up to the Minister to supply the Board with money from Government sources to keep it going.
However, this is not what we are debating. I am glad that the Minister has reduced it half way, but I want it reduced to nothing at all. That is why I am asking him to think again. I am encouraged in this, because the last time we asked the Parliamentary Secretary to think again about the Order he refused, but within two weeks had agreed. Perhaps he will do so again and reduce it by another £3.
The arguments against the levy and the Board were conclusively argued in our previous debate, and nothing has changed: there have been no improvements and no ideas of value since then. Therefore, I do not know how the argument for even £3 can be sustained. That is why I am asking for the Order to be withdrawn, since that would be much more in the industry's interests.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: We have gone over this subject at considerable length already, but since our last debate I have seen nothing to suggest that the Industrial Training Board is prepared to put its house in order. Nothing suggests that it is prepared to cut the very large administrative costs. This is what is annoying the agricultural community. I do not believe that it is quite so annoyed now that the levy has been reduced but it is still concerned about the attitude of the Board and of the chairman, who is not prepared to give a little and make severe cuts.
Has the Minister heard whether the Board is prepared to do anything about this? If these costs could be slashed, the Board could get on with its task

with our agreement. The chairman has been completely inflexible and his attitude to this problem and to the resentment of the farmers has been distressing. I would have thought that he would at least try to gain the good will not only of hon. Members, but of the farmers, and he has not. Is the First Secretary of State prepared to see whether she can ask the chairman to take a more reasonable line? As I said last time, unless he has the co-operation of the agricultural community, this will not work.
I have a levy form at home, but have not sent the money and I do not intend to send it until I see a change in the chairman's attitudes. If the First Secretary of State wants the Board to work she should have a polite word in the chairman's ear. Without a change of attitude by the chairman, this will not work. I represent a remote area with very small farms and I have not heard what help the Board can give these farms, which have perhaps one workman or none. But they will have to pay the levy nevertheless and will get little benefit.
If the Parliamentary Secretary will answer those three points—about the administrative costs, the chairman's attitude and how the Board will benefit remoter areas with hundreds of small farms—it would give me some heart not only to pay my levy, but to encourage other farmers to pay theirs. The First Secretary of State should beware. Without the co-operation of the agricultural community, the whole thing will collapse. If she has not realised that already, I am afraid that she is in for a very big shock.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Since our last debate on the previous Order which was withdrawn, an incident has come to my attention which the Minister should know. I have written to the Chairman of the Agricultural Training Board, Mr. Neame, about it and received a totally unsatisfactory reply.
The largest horticultural producer in my constituency, whom I have known for seven years and for whose veracity I have the greatest respect, told me that, several months ago, without any prior arrangements, a representative of the Board suddenly arrived at his office. My constituent was naturally very busy, and


when he got the telephone message that this man wished to see him immediately, he had to say that he could not see him then because he was heavily engaged, and the training officer had given him no advance notice. Although the officer had a discussion with my constituent's manager, he sent my constituent a message to say that he was in much greater demand than supply, that far more people were waiting to see him than he could get around to, and that, unless my constituent saw him immediately, he would leave and never come back.
When I reported this extraordinarily arrogant incident to the Chairman, I received the extraordinary reply that this was but another example of the ill-will and prejudice of the agricultural industry towards the Board. I can conceive of no more topsy-turvy reply. If the Board intends to conduct its relationships with people trying to earn their living in the industry in this extraordinarily arrogant manner, it cannot be surprised if it meets suspicion and resentment.
If these training officers are busy and want farmers and horticulturists to drop everything and discuss their business when they arrive, they should take the precaution of ringing or sending a postcard beforehand. Large producers with many customers cannot tell customers who are visiting them to go away for an hour while they talk with someone who has given no advance notice but indulged in a sort of apostalic visitation.
I would therefore ask the Minister himself to make strong representations to the Chairman of the Agricultural, Horticultural and Forestry Industry Training Board, who is not himself over-endowed with tact or the ability to get on with others, and to impress upon him the necessity of employing as training officers people who have the gift of getting on with individual producers and impressing upon them the necessity of conducting themselves in a courteous and reasonable manner towards those whose co-operation they are going to need if they are to make a success of the scheme.
If they do not get that co-operation the £3 levy in the Order which is before the House for approval at the moment will not just be wasted, it will be scandalously wasted; because this is a

statutory imposition placed on the industry which can be justified only by results—results which will not be forthcoming unless the representatives of the Board conduct themselves in a courteous and reasonable manner towards the individual producer. Certainly, the example which I have quoted, from a constituent whom I have known for more than seven years, leads me to suppose that there, at any rate, these elementary preconditions do not exist.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Bert Hazell: I rise to express the approval of workers employed in the agricultural industry. I recall, as does the House generally, the very long debate we had when the previous Prayer was moved in January last during the course of which various aspects of the proposed training in the agricultural, horticultural and forestry industries were discussed at considerable length. It is fair to say that the Training Board has so far hardly had an opportunity of getting on its feet; and debates of this nature will be considerably unsettling for those who have entered into this work which requires, and will require, a good deal of patience and understanding on both sides of the industry.
If there has been a measure of reluctance—and one recognises that there has—on the part of employers within the agricultural industry to accept the Board, it is equally true, I believe, that the workers too, perhaps particularly some of the older ones, are a little reluctant to accept the idea of training. I do not believe that anyone on either side of the House would but agree that training is an absolute "must" within an industry so complex and so changing as modern agriculture. I do not believe that even hon. Gentlemen opposite would oppose the idea of training as such.
One can, of course, understand that irritation is caused if a newly-appointed officer goes about his task in a ham-fisted way. Certainly, I would not be one to condone anything of that kind. I believe that, in the main, the field officers who are appointed have a good deal of knowledge of what is expected of them, but I suppose it would be fair to say that there might be the odd individual here and there who might tackle his job


in the wrong way. I am pretty certain that he will not be working with the Training Board and coming up against farmers and workers for very long before he realises that he will have to approach both sides in a more tactful manner.
During the past three months I have been privileged to attend conferences of my organisation from Devonshire to the north of England, and I have had the opportunity of talking informally with, and listening to, training officers in the areas where these conferences have been held; because we have deliberately followed a police of inviting the area training officer to our conference, recognising as we have the need for him to make known clearly to workers within the industry what training is about and how essential it is that they should recognise their responsibilities in this matter.
We felt—I believe probably quite rightly—that it would be an excellent opportunity to introduce these training officers to our branch officers at county conference level; and I have been impressed by the general quality of the field officers whom I have met. Obviously, there have been among them some who have not had the practical training one would have wished, but they will not be doing much of the training themselves. Their responsibility will be to ensure that at the machinery depôts, Royal Agricultural Colleges or progressive farms, facilities are made available to provide a training class for a small nucleus of workers interested in a particular facet. Theirs will be the job of unifying the work of management, with proper and adequate training facilities.
I listened with interest to what was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills)—that small farmers will not derive much benefit from any training scheme instituted within the industry. I believe they will stand to gain more advantage, perhaps, than some of the larger units; for if one takes the pattern of industry generally, it is the larger manufacturer who provides the training facilities in his workshop and allows his workers to go on day-release courses and so on. Often when those men are trained they migrate to smaller businesses so that the smaller businesses take advantage of the training facilities provided by larger undertakings. I believe

that this will prove equally true of farmers.
It will be the larger farmers who allow their workers to go for training, and without doubt the small farmer, looking to the future when recruiting labour, will recruit from people trained on larger farms. I believe that it will largely be the bigger farmers who will provide such training opportunities, because the absence of workers on courses always causes inconvenience and it may well be that larger farmers, after having had their workers away on training courses for half a day, a day or two days, as the case may be, will later find they have lost them to small farmers who had not sufficient manpower to enable them to offer training facilities for their own workers. I believe this will affect all sides of the agricultural industry, and all farmers, be they small or large, and that nothing but good can come, ultimately, from the facilities that will be made available.
I will mention just three results which I feel sure will be experienced after the scheme has been working for some time. First, I believe that efficiently trained workers will be able to do much of the minor maintenance required on tractors and farm implements, and substantially to reduce the heavy maintenance costs that every farmer has to meet at present in having his agricultural machinery repaired by his agricultural machinery dealer or possibly the local garage. Men who have been even partly trained can be of tremendous advantage to farmers in reducing maintenance costs and the small outlay involved will be recouped time and time again.
Secondly,—and I believe this to be all important—trained workers will act more responsibly towards their jobs and we might, as a consequence, see a substantial reduction in the heavy toll of nearly 10,000 accidents which occur on British farms annually. That would be of advantage not only to the worker who suffers the consequences of accidents but also to farmers who find their work-load upset and their plans disarranged because a worker is off for a few days, or perhaps for a week or a fortnight, suffering as a result of an accident that, with some care and responsibility, could have been avoided
Thirdly, as a result of training, workers in agriculture will take a greater interest


in the work they are doing. Instead of regarding a task merely as a job, they will have the knowledge that, by performing a task in a certain way, they are increasing output. I am a member of an agricultural wages board—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he can refer only to the merits of the scheme as a whole in relation to the proposal in the Order to reduce the levy from £6 to £3.

Mr. Hazell: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for drawing that to my attention, but of course without the levy one cannot have a training scheme.
In the development of an agricultural wages structure, the categories into which workers will be fitted will be dependent on the training and skill of those workers. The Training Board will obviously be of help in ensuring that workers have the skill and knowledge to make them capable of receiving the rate of pay that will ultimately be determined for each category in such a wages structure.
Perhaps it is a good thing for the air to be cleared by the levy being discussed openly, as it is today. I hope that the time has come when the Training Board can now be allowed to show its worth to the industry. Grants are already being paid from the levy, and while the levy is not yet being collected, farmers are enabling their workers to be trained. Now that the scheme is more clearly understood—as a result of the debates in Parliament and elsewhere—I hone that it will be allowed to progress because in the long run this modern and complex industry, as it now is, needs highly trained workers. The scheme must succeed because other methods have not proved successful.

6.12 p.m.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: It is always interesting to hear the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Hazell) pouring oil on troubled waters in support of his right hon. Friends. The waters are troubled, and nobody knows that better than the hon. Member for Norfolk, North. The hon. Gentleman has been telling us how pleasant the situation is. I suggest, on the contrary, that of the Minister, the chairman of the Board or whoever else it is who must apply this concept, someone is well on the way to ruining a very good idea.
The idea of an industrial training levy was inaugurated by the Conservative Party. Now it is being ruined because of the way in which this scheme is being handled. Those concerned do not like the way it is being presented and represented to them on their farms; and evidence of that has been supplied by my hon. Friends.
The hon. Member for Norfolk, North said that grants are already being made out of the fund, which is made up of levies, but the levies have not yet been collected and, as yet, I understand that there is no authority to collect them. In what position is Parliament? The Parliamentary Secretary is good at answering these sorts of debates—he has had a lot of practice at it lately—and suggest that the Order should be completely withdrawn in view of the evidence which shows that even if we must go back to having an industrial training levy in agriculture, now is not a good time to have it.
The whole atmosphere has been made sour. For the sake of this concept, not only in agriculture but in engineering, the hotel industry and other trades which have training levies, the scheme in this case should be withdrawn so that, at a later date, those who must operate it and pay the levy can be more in sympathy with the concept and we can have rather more public relations from the chairman of the Board and his officials who eventually must sell the idea.
In urging the Minister to withdraw the Order, I should make it clear that I believe that training is a good idea. In every industry—and certainly in an industry as complex as modern agriculture—the idea of giving guidance on how to use the latest implements and new techniques which are being introduced almost daily is highly desirable. However, I do not believe that a case has been made out for having a statutory training—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing in this Order whether the levy should be reduced from £6 to £3.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I accept that, Mr. Speaker, but I am suggesting that the whole thing should be withdrawn. I am not asking for a reduction in the levy


but that, since it is still within the power of Parliament to do something about it, we should abolish it. Perhaps this is the last moment when we can ask the Government to withdraw it, in the interests of the industry. It is our duty—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The only Instrument which the hon. Member can ask to be withdrawn is this Order, not the original Order which it amends. We are here discussing whether the original sum of £6 in the original Order should be reduced to £3.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I understand that if it was withdrawn the Government would not have the authority to collect any levy whatever for this industry.

Mr. Hazell: On a point of order. Is it not a fact that the original Order relating to the sum of £6 was approved by Parliament?

Mr. Speaker: I am endeavouring to convey that fact to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls).

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, as this Order represents an amendment to the original Order—in that it is designed to reduce the levy from £6 to £3—if this were withdrawn, the Government would not be left with statutory authority to impose a levy. I gather, from the acquiescence of the Parliamentary Secretary, that this is so.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley): The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley) indicated dissent.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: We still have time to ask the Government to reconsider the full effects—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot discuss the full effects of the parent Order on an Order which is designed to reduce the levy mentioned in the parent Order from £6 to £3. He can only discuss whether the sum should be £6 or £3.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Although I would have thought that we could press for the whole Order to be withdrawn, I will not pursue that line of argument since it seems, from what you have said, Mr. Speaker, that I would be out of order.
Even an. amended levy of £3 should not he proceeded with because even if we did not have a levy—and it has been

pointed out that it has not been collected—that would not mean that this great industry would not have a training scheme. Those of us who have served in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—I was a junior Minister and I note that one of my successors in title is on the Treasury Bench—are aware of the amount of training that goes on. When we attended agricultural shows—I refer not only to the large exhibitions but the small country shows as well—we saw the training facilities that were already being provided by those who supply tractors and other farm equipment. Those training schemes have produced amazingly good results, without there being any statutory obligation on farmers to pay a levy of £3 or any other sum. In view of the great success of this voluntary training system, as one might call it, I suggest that the Government have no need for even a reduced levy of £3.
Whether or not we approve the order today, I hope that the Government will take heed of the ham-handed way in which the people who have to implement the Order carry out their public relations. Whether or not the chairman of the Board is an able man, dedicated to his task, it is unhappily the fact that he has given the impression of being so bureaucratic and high-handed that he has prevented the easy acceptance of what was a good idea.
Even at this late hour, I feel that there is a sufficiently strong case for the Government to consider withdrawing the Order. By withdrawing it they will let the farming community know that their genuine protests are being heeded. They can then re-present it, if they so wish, having produced a better and more co-operative atmosphere than at present exists.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot propose amendments. He can debate whether the levy should be £6, £3 or some other sum.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I am trying very hard. You, Mr. Speaker, are very much on the alert. I apologise if I am straining your discretion too much. I am not asking for £6, or £3; I am asking for nothing; and the only way for me to do that is by asking the Government to withdraw the Order. I can see no great urge in the House to press them to do that.


If they do not do that, I urge them to work very hard to try to recreate an atmosphere of co-operation and understanding. If this debate does no more than impress upon the Ministers concerned the need to do that, then it will have been worth while.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Tony Gardner: With very great respect to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), I recall that we have been through all this before. The arguments which are being rehearsed now were rehearsed over two evenings on the parent Order. At that time some hon. Members opposite, with whom I felt some sympathy, supported in general terms the need for agricultural training and eventually the levy, because of the very considerable difficulties which the industry faced in the winter. On that occasion we on this side supported the Order which the Government were bringing in, but we shared some of the fears of hon. Gentlemen opposite.
It seems most strange that this afternoon, when the Government have recognised the difficulties which were then discussed at great length, and in fact cut the levy by half, we are now discussing the same old arguments.
We might debate at great length exactly how much the levy should be, but if hon. Members opposite pursue the line that the industry appears to be able to pay nothing, since this is the ultimate effect of their Prayer, whatever their arguments will be, we are saying that agricultural industrial training is just not worth even the £3.
The hon. Member for Peterborough was talking about the agricultural training that is already being given. I agree completely—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss the Training Board. We discussed that on a previous Order. That previous Order fixed the amount of levy at £6. This Order reduces it to £3. We can discuss only whether it should be reduced to £3 or left at £6.

Mr. Gardner: I apologise, Mr. Speaker; I was tempted by some of the arguments. In that case, there does not seem to be a great deal that we can discuss. I have made my main point, that this is a major

concession on the part of the Government, who recognise the difficulties which the industry has faced this year. I hope that hon. Members opposite will not look this gift horse in the mouth, but will join with us in supporting the need for the reduced amount of levy, if only to show that we support the need for training in agriculture.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. John Wells: Two fundamental differences have arisen since the parent Order was debated, and I will endeavour to direct my remarks entirely to the change in the levy.
The first difference is that within 48 hours of the previous debate the Government ate their words. They said at the previous debate that it could not be changed, and it was changed.
As has already been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), the Board is already paying out the money, although the levy is not yet fixed, which calls into question the Parliamentary authority for this action. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) has said that we should not look this gift horse a in the mouth, but the extra £3 must come from somewhere, and it is coming from the majority of taxpayers. If the farming community do not want the Training Board at any price—and I shall seek to prove this in a moment—why then should the taxpayers have to find the balance?
Since this matter was previously debated, hon. Members in several parts of the House have asked the Government if they will hold a referendum of the view of the farming community, and the Government have consistently refused. In my county of Kent, not in my own area but elsewhere, a branch of the National Farmers' Union have held a poll of their members to ascertain their views on this point. They put out two questions—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have discussion on the existence or the need for the existence of the Board. That has been decided. We have also decided that a levy shall be made. This Order seeks to reduce the levy from £6 to £3. This is what we are discussing tonight.

Mr. Wells: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. The point remains that the farmers have been asked what levy they would like to pay, and most of them have said they would like to pay no levy at all. If the farmers would like to pay no levy, I see no reason why the majority of taxpayers should pay the lot. I therefore ask two specific questions of the Minister. First, will he wind up the Board, and, second, will he dismiss the Chairman?

Mr. Speaker: Order, order, The Minister cannot, in winding up, answer either of those two questions.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: I have two points to put before the Minister. The first is that in all the speeches which have been made this evening the message that has been conveyed to the Minister is that unless the Board is able to convey to the country that it is winning the confidence of the farmers, it will not be very successful.
There has been very strong resentment against the levies, not only in my county of Sussex, as doubtless the Minister knows, but throughout the country. The hon. Members for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) and for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) have all suggested various ways in which confidence in the Board could be won. The hon. Member for Torrington wanted to ensure that the administrative costs were kept low, which is most important.
My second point is that an assessment notice has been sent out during the last few days asking for the balance for the year 1967–68 to be paid. As the Minister knows, conversations have been taking place between the National Farmers' Union and the Board. It is a pity that such levy notices should have been sent out before the end of those discussions. This has resulted in opinion in the country hardening against the Board. I have received a letter from a very responsible member of the farming community in my own county, expressing it in this way:
I am genuinely convinced that unless the Agricultural Training Board adopts more realistic, prudent and practical methods, it will fail. The Board has alienated itself to the industry and to those whose backing it cannot afford to be without: whether the position can be recovered or not is a moot point.

I hope the Minister will convey to the Board how important it is to obtain the confidence of farmers and of workers in the industry. The hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Hazell) explained four reasons why training would be of value. Unfortunately, I cannot pursue that, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure that it would not win your approval.

6.30 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley): A number of hon. Members who have taken part in the debate have had to leave the Chamber, but all of them have expressed their apologies to me and their understanding that I may have to make comments about their speeches in their absence.
I turn immediately to the point made by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) and the suggestion that I was so adamant in the defence of the previous Order and so certain that £6 was the only conceivable figure, that there could not be any reason to assume that I now proposed an appropriate figure. Had the hon. Gentleman been here, I would have urged him to read the final paragraph of my speech on 29th January in which I made it clear that at that time I was discussing with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture the application from the Board and from the National Farmers' Union for additional Government assistance in the financing of the Board.
It is clear from the words with which I ended my speech that the possibility of the amended Order which is now before the House was in my mind. In my final sentence, I said:
While that request is under consideration the Board must continue to exist, because it is in the interests of the industry, and it can only continue if it is financed by levy. It must be financed by the Levy Order which I commend to the House now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1968; Vol. 757, c. 1050.]
That is a clear implication of the possibility of change. In fact, it was so clear that the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), who followed me, described my speech as leaving the House in the worst of both possible worlds. The clear implication of his remarks was that I had left the House not knowing what the exact levy position would be.
While I think that his criticism was unjustified, his conclusion was reasonable. It is certainly at variance with the suggestion that the original Order was so definite that something approaching negligence is implied by asking for this reduction.
That I could imply the possible need for a reduction on that occasion stems from two causes. The first was the structural problems which always affected training in the industry and made our original intentions by their very nature liable to alteration. To organise training adequately, it had to be organised in the counties and on the farms and not from London. To organise training adequately, it had to be organised amongst the small units which make up the bulk of the industry and are the units most in need of training. Both necessities posed problems for the Board from the word go.
We knew on 29th January that, as well as these structural problems, there were immediate problems facing the Board because of the greater problems facing the industry at that time. Because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic, farmers were unable to move from farm to farm, as were union officers and training officers of the Board. As a result, the training programme was seriously curtailed. The campaign of explanation and description of the work of the Board was equally curtailed. I have told the House on two previous occasions of the number of meetings and schools which had to be cancelled and closed down because of that necessary immobility. It was that which obliged the Government to intervene and look again at the general financial support which we were prepared to give to the Board in these altogether extraordinary circumstances.
Because of the curtailment in activities as a result of the foot-and-mouth epidemic and the Board's inability to meet all the demands for training which it anticipated, and because of the special circumstances associated with the acceptance of the Board since the Board had been unable to justify itself to the industry, my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Labour agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that an extra grant of £450,000 should be given to the Board so that it could continue for a temporary

period on a reduced levy. The levy was to be reduced by 50 per cent., and that is the levy which is the subject of the amended Order that I am defending tonight.
I announced the intention to amend and I announced the agreement that a grant of £450,00 should be made to the Board in the House on 14th February. Tonight's Order is a direct consequence of that announcement.
It is worth recalling that on 14th February the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) asked me:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the statement he has made is very much in line with the proposal I made in a recent debate, and that I welcome it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th February, 1968; Vol. 758, c. 1348–9.]
As I recall my reply, I said that it was immaterial to me from where a good idea sprang but that, if it was a good idea, I hoped that he and I would join together in welcoming it. I only wish that other hon. Gentlemen shared our view that the decision to reduce the levy in this way was one which was in the interests of the industry and one which should command the unanimous support of the House.
In defence of the Board, I should make it clear that when I met the Board, together with representatives of the National Farmers' Union, I made two things clear. The extraordinary circumstances affecting the industry justified the special grant of £450,000. It was, however being made during a time of economic stringency. The grant of £½ million should not encourage it to believe that more might be available. There was an obligation on the Board, which I imposed as part of its undertaking and agreement to accept an offer, to make itself self-sufficient and to create a viable Board, which, after the £450,000 was spent, could stand of its own feet and run its own affairs.
My stipulation stemmed from two main reasons. The first is that the Board needs to be part of the industry and accepted by the industry. The application of an acceptable grant and levy system is a step in that direction. The second is that if training is to be organised in accordance with the provisions of the 1964 Training Act introduced by the right hon. Member for Grantham, it is essential that the industry itself should finance that


training. The £3 levy to which I am asking the House to agree is a measure intended to enable the industry to finance its own training.
I made other points to the Board at that time which in many ways are identical with some of the expressions of opinion which we have heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite, although I trust that I said them in a rather different tone. I pointed out that it was essential for the Board to work in harmony with the industry. I think that I have spoken on this subject in the House on five previous occasions. Every time, I have said at least twice, and I make no apology for repeating it now, that it is essential that the Board should work with the industry. I hoped that the fact that the Board could say to its constituent farmers that during these troubled times the levy was being reduced by 50 per cent. would help the industry and the Board to work together in harmony.
In a sense, that has been achieved already. The National Farmers' Union is now holding discussions with the Board and has made a series of proposals which must remain confidential at the moment. But these are material proposals which the Board is considering and which may result in a great deal more harmony than we have yet had.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Are the discussions likely to affect the level of the levy, or is it fixed, whatever happens?

Mr. Hattersley: Since I am under an obligation to keep the proposals confidential, I do not want to pursue that in any detail, but I hope that the House understands that, whatever the union's proposals may be and whatever their outcome, they are about the long-term future of the Board. The £3 levy seeks to make the Board viable at the moment.
The Board needs this money for running today. It has needed it for running every day since 1st April. I hope the House and the parties to this discussion will keep separate in their minds the problems which the N.F.U. is discussing with the Board and the obligations of the Board to raise a levy to keep it in being until those problems are sorted out and a mutually agreed solution—as I hope it will be—becomes part of the Board's policy.
The levy is necessary because no other source of finance is possible if the Board is to continue. There is no possibility of any additional Government grant being available. The only source is the very modest levy which the Order recommends. I think I am in order in telling the House of the progress of the amended Order to date. It has been said that levy notices have already gone out on the amended figure. So they have, to farmers, except in areas affected by the foot-and-mouth epidemic, to whom the levy will be sent later. The notices went out on 5th April.
Most farmers have responded in a different way from that of the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills). About 400 payments a day are being received and to date the Board has received £76,000. This is the sort of response one would expect from a responsible industry, from an industry which knows that both the Government and the Board are anxious for the industry to work in harmony with the Board. It is the sort of responsibility which I hope will characterise the work of the Board in the years ahead.
I must tell the House of the general attitude of the National Farmers' Union towards the amended Order as it stands. It is important to remember that originally the Board came about because of the National Farmers' Union request that it should be set up, a request sent to my right hon. Friend on 13th February, 1965 in the name of the then Vice-President who is now the President of the National Farmers' Union. It is important to remember that the National Farmers'. Union even remained enthusiastic for the Board raising the original levy of £6, until immediately before the levy Order was debated in this House in January. Indeed, the anti-levy committee set up in the county of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells)—not, of course, connected with him, but coincidentally in his county—was greeted officially by the N.F.U. Press office with the description of "Luddite". That was the attitude of the National Farmers' Union until the very eve of the original debate on the original Order.
I hope that that attitude, which certainly has hardened in the last few months, will be softened by the knowledge that the Government remain


determined that the Board and the industry—both sides of that industry not just the farmers but the employees as well—should work in harmony. I hope that the reduction in levy which the Order recommends to the House will be taken as an indication of our determination to work in harmony with the industry.

Mr. John Wells: The hon. Gentleman must realise that when he speaks of the National Farmers' Union he speaks of the hierarchy in London, whereas it is poles apart from the membership in the country on this problem.

Mr. Hattersley: I acknowledge that the enthusiasm shown by the leadership of the National Farmers Union, which was shown up to 29th January, is not reflected everywhere among its membership. Equally I am sure the hon. Member will acknowledge that the 400 letters a day containing the levy received by the Industrial Training Board do not come from the council of the N.F.U. but from ordinary farmers meeting their statutory obligations. While there may be disagreement as to the way in which the Board is working, there is general acceptance that its job needs to be done. I ask the hon. Member to read again the many articles which have appeared in the technical and professional Press in the last few months—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not be tempted to go beyond the Order.

Mr. Hattersley: —none of which, I am sorry to say, referred to the reduction of the levy. I referred to the reduction of the levy in meetings with the National Farmers' Union and made two points about the decision to reduce the levy. The first was that it was intended as an indication of our enthusiasm for the industry and the Board to work hand in hand. The second was my hope that there would be no temptation to do what I fear the hon. Member for Torrington said would be done—not to pay the levy until the last moment. Any hon. Member or any farmer who complains about the administrative costs of a board but intentionally increases the administrative costs by not responding to the first application and waiting for the second or third seems, to say the least, inconsistent.
Irrespective of that, there is the basic fact, which I cannot stress too strongly, that the only way in which the Board can be financed is by a levy, on this occasion the reduced levy of £3. Since it is the intention of the Government that the Board shall continue, since it is the view of the Government that it is in the interests of the industry to continue and that the reduced levy must be paid, it becomes—if the House approves it—a statutory requirement. Members of the industry who choose not to pay it are only buying a very short amount of time. It will become an obligation on them, an obligation which the Board will have to pursue to continue its effective and important existence.

Question put and negatived.

LAND DRAINAGE RATES

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) has indicated to a Minister that he wishes to raise a subject and has given the Minister notice. This is important. Sir Douglas Glover.

6.46 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: I confirm that, Mr. Speaker. When I found that the debate today looked as if it would terminate at a more reasonable time than usual, I thought this an opportunity to raise a very important matter for my constituents. I have a reputation, I believe, for from time to time keeping the House a little later than it would otherwise be kept. It is therefore appropriate to show how reasonable is the hon. Member for Ormskirk. I have been in this House for 15 years and this is the first Adjournment debate I have had and it is starting at exactly 12 minutes to seven o'clock. That shows how false a reputation an hon. Member can get. Having shown the reasonableness of my attitude towards the Government and the convenience of hon. Members, I hope that my reputation of the past will disappear for good.
When I first became a candidate for the great constituency of Ormskirk, I was told that it was of little use enunciating


on the great problems of national politics because the bulk of members of my constituency were interested in only one thing. That was the problem of the drainage rate. The difficulty about the problem of the drainage rate is that I suppose there are only about 10, or at most a dozen, hon. Members of this ancient House who have such a problem in their constituencies, or who even have the slightest idea of to what we are referring when we speak of the problem of the drainage rate. A great many think that we are talking about the ordinary rate, or the water rate. They have no idea that there is another rate which some people have to pay.
It would be reasonable, therefore, particularly from my constituency's point of view, to give the House some history as to how this drainage rate arose originally. My constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) are probably the only two areas in Britain which are more akin to Holland than the rest of the United Kingdom. In 1795 the bulk of my present constituency and the land abutting on to it was virtually all marshland; it was a succession of lakes. At that time there was only one narrow track between Ormskirk and Southport. One had to know one's way very well otherwise one would be drowned en route. The total population of the area was almost nil.
The Hesketh family—one of whom was the Member of Parliament for Southport in recent years—then started to drain the area, much to their own personal benefit and also to the benefit of the agricultural community. The difficulty with such land is that the land itself, the soil and subsoil, contracts and therefore, over the years, the level of the land sinks. In addition to that, the channel of the Ribble was altered and the result was that by the early 1920s the drainage system, which had worked satisfactorily for a very long time on a gravity basis, was rapidly failing because the Ribble had silted up the perimeter of the district. The land had sunk in the middle and we were faced with the problem of a vast saucer, where the land in the middle was below sea level and, because of the silting up, the perimeter was above sea level.

The gravity drainage therefore became gradually more and more inefficient.
My predecessors in Ormskirk had had this problem for many years and had not been successful in persuading the Governments of the day to take action. The problem had become so serious that the farmers were being flooded out and were losing their crops on an average of every other year; in 1954 and 1955 it became two years out of three. This was a disaster.
I then had a certain stroke of luck in that I was able to persuade a very great Chancellor of the Exchequer and Minister of Agriculture, the present Lord Amory, to visit my constituency at the height of one of the floods. If I might advise hon. Members—always persuade the Minister to come when a disaster is at its height and not when it has died out, some weeks later. The result was that Lord Amory, as Minister of Agriculture, sanctioned a new drainage scheme for my constituency, costing over £1 million. The Exchequer agreed to pay more than 50 per cent. of the cost. The result was that the farmers think that their present Member of Parliament is by far the most outstanding Member the constituency has ever had!
Nothing in this world is all roses. I must now explain to the House how the system of drainage rate works. The landlord is responsible, under the present drainage legislation for the capital cost of any drainage work, but the tenant is responsible for all the day-to-day running costs or administrative costs. This comes to a higher yearly sum than the repayment of the interest on the capital and the capital projects. My farmers are delighted; they now can be sure that they will harvest the crops from what is some of the richest agricultural land in Britain and they themselves—although they pay an increased drainage rate on the capital side if they are the owners—if they are the tenants their increased income is such that they do not complain about it.
Another problem has arisen. When the drainage rate system was evolved whereby the tenant was responsible for the administrative costs, it was a perfectly reasonable system because the bulk of the people who lived in the area were either directly or indirectly connected


with the agricultural industry. It was therefore to the benefit of the owner and the tenant—even if they were cottagers—because they were employed in agriculture. It was in their interests that the drainage system was highly efficient. The system of levying the drainage rate, going back a great number of years, was originally a fairly reasonable thing. My constituency has altered a great deal. It is now, in addition to being an agricultural constituency, a large residential commuting area. People are living in the area as a result of the industrial development in Liverpool and elsewhere. They buy houses; they have never heard of a drainage rate. They are horrified and shocked when, about 12 months later, they get a demand through the post for something about which they have never heard or understood. This certainly does not apply in any part of the country from which they came. Even if they came from as close at hand as Liverpool, I doubt whether they realise there is this problem with the drainage rate. There is always a great deal of ill-feeling amongst those who pay the drainage rate.
It would perhaps not be so sore a point with the people who pay the drainage rate except that this is arbitrarily fixed. One pays the drainage rate only if one is eight feet above a drainage point, and anything above that level is considered to be above the flood level. If one's house happens to be an inch higher than someone else's, one might avoid a drainage rate. A slightly ludicrous situation exists, in that people on one side of the road might pay the drainage rate and people on the other side of the road might not. It is even more ludicrous because the people on the side of the road where they do pay the drainage rate are sometimes on a sandy subsoil which drains very quickly and those on the other side of the road are perhaps on a clay subsoil where the drainage water takes much longer to clear away and yet they do not pay the drainage rate. This is bound to lead to a great sense of injustice among the residents in my constituency.
When Mr. Christopher Soames was the Minister of Agriculture, he alleviated the situation to some degree in his Agriculture Act. It is now permissible for a

local authority to levy the drainage rate on all its ratepayers if it so desires and to pay the rate to the drainage board as a lump sum. As I told my right hon. Friend at the time, it really does not operate in practice. It is asking a great deal of local councillors, who have to stand for election from time to time, to have to say in their election programmes that if they are returned to power for the West Lancashire Rural District Council they propose taking half the rate paid by Douglas Glover and putting it on to other ratepayers. The result is that, although there is this permissive power, in practice it certainly does not operate in my constituency. I should be very surprised if it did operate to any great extent anywhere in the country where this drainage rate is involved.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with interest, and I understand his grievance. But if it can be solved only by the local authority or by altering the law, it cannot be discussed on the Adjournment. The hon. Gentleman must suggest something for which the Minister is administratively responsible.

Sir D. Glover: I was giving the background to the case, Mr. Speaker, because I think that it is relevant. Otherwise, the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) probably would not understand the problem.
I pointed out that the owner pays the capital charges and the tenant pays the administrative charges. I should also make it clear that I am not asking the Minister tonight to make concrete proposals as to how the problem could be solved. I doubt whether there is unanimity on either side of the House among those who understand the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely may have something to say about the problem with which I would not agree, and he may disagree with some of the things I say in reviewing the problem. It is so technical and affects so very few people that I think a different approach is needed to it.
I feel that at present the rate is levied over too narrow an area. It would probably be wise to alter the system so that it is levied over the watershed from which the water comes. Ormskirk, which stands up as a sort of small hill in the middle of


my constituency, has had an enormous increase in the number of its houses, and it seems to me that the people in those houses have a responsibility which at present they are not meeting. The rain falls on the houses and metal roads and therefore runs very fast. It is down into the drainage area in half an hour, and therefore the whole drainage system must be that much bigger. Now, as a result of Lord Amory's scheme, it is all pumped drainage which is very expensive to run.
The system is based on the historical view in this country that the responsibility is that of the person where the water settles, that wherever one lives on a hill it is only at the lowest common denominator that it becomes one's responsibility. That is the ancient law of this country, but it originated at a time when England was very much more an agricultural community—I do not mean by that the total production of agriculture. Therefore, it is at least a reasonable suggestion that people who get away scot-free today should be considered for liability to pay the rate by altering the area over which it is levied, by altering the system so that it is made more equitable to the community as a whole.
The whole question of the drainage rate is a very specialised subject. There are many pros and cons, and few people in the House who are knowledgeable on the subject. It affects such a narrow field that I feel strongly that it would be a good idea to call a conference or have a study group on the problem. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be sympathetic to that idea, so that the whole question can be examined and given a bit of the publicity that this sort of discussion inevitably arouses.
It can be said that the drainage rate does not impose any additional burden on the householder, because the value of his property is reduced. That is the theory of those who support the present system. They say that because of the drainage rate the householder's assessment for the general rate is that much lower, and in total he does not pay any more money. That argument would apply in a country with a surplus of houses, but it certainly does not apply in one where there is a shortage. I do not think that there is any difference in the value of the houses in my constituency according to whether they are below the

datum point and pay the drainage rate, or above it and do not pay, because both are desirable areas in which people want to live. Some areas may be taken over by a local authority for overspill and that sort of thing. Therefore, the value of those properties is not altered, as they would have been in olden days, because of the additional drainage rate burden.
The hon. Gentleman's Department could do a great deal to investigate the matter, which I do not believe has been investigated for many years, that could investigate the changing pattern of British life and consider the fact that people are living in areas, not by choice, but of necessity, who have no connection with the agricultural community and derive no benefit in more secure employment or increased incomes because of the increased profitability of their crops. The original system was almost entirely devised to deal with the problem of a rural agricultural community. Certainly my area, and I believe in others where there is a drainage rate, is no longer purely an agricultural community but is a large residential community as well. In that residential community is a narrow group of people with all the feelings of injustice that any normal person would experience because of the narrow division between those who do and do not pay.
The time has come for a really deep, searching review of the whole problem so that it can be shown with clarity to those involved that they are not suffering an injustice, or, if I am right in my belief that they are, to produce the evidence which would probably decide the House to take the appropriate steps to put the matter right.
I apologise to the Minister for the very short notice I gave him. I have no criticism if he says that he would sooner answer many of my points by writing to me, but I thought that this was an opportunity to raise the matter in the House, because it is in the interests of my constituents to do so. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his Department will take serious notice of my points.

7.9 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) is always dutiful and assiduous in seeking to protect the interests of his constituents. I should not in any way wish to criticise his motive


in raising the matter this evening, but unfortunately he stopped too soon in his historical summary of land drainage legislation, because in this very Session we have had the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, Part IV of which goes a very long way to meeting his anxieties. If in saying this I inadvertently happen to give credit to the Government, I am sure that the Government will join me in paying tribute to the internal drainage boards for the work they have done in helping the Government to draft the Amendments they have now embodied in legislation.
I declare the unpaid interest of being a Vice-President of the Association of Drainage Authorities. I do this as a labour of love because, without the work that drainage authorities do, my constituency would consist only of the original Isle of Ely and a few other little islands dotted about the Fens. In view of what land drainage can do, care must be taken when dealing with the vexed question of drainage rates not to underestimate what would happen if the internal drainage boards failed to carry out their work.
I believe that the Government are right to assume that to carry out effective drainage work there has to be an element of rough justice; there has to be an element of authoritarianism, otherwise the work would not get done in time. I am certain that the scheme which has been carried out in the constituency of my hon. Friend would never work effectively unless somebody was prepared sometimes to stand up to some public criticism.
All of us recognise that we have in our constituencies, especially where there are internal drainage boards, people who live on the borderline. Sometimes, as frequently occurs in my constituency, they live on the borderline between two separate internal drainage boards each of which levies a different rate. The same type of problem arises there—sometimes a more grievous one—as that which arises between the person who lives below 8 ft. above the highest known flood level and those who live above that level.
Incidentally, I think that my hon. Friend was not quite correct in his definition of this question of 8 ft. above the highest known flood level. A person can live at any level below 8 ft. above the

highest known flood level to be rated and those who live above 8 ft. above the highest known flood level are not on the ordinary drainage rate, but subject to the general charge. I think that river authorities have a duty to report to the House each year the amount of the special drainage charge or general drainage charge which they raise on areas outside those covered by the internal drainage board. As my hon. Friend rightly said, Mr. Christopher Soames, when he was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, brought in the general charge, about which some of us have grave doubts. The decisions which have been taken and embodied in Part IV of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill have gone a long way to meet our anxieties on that point.
I recognise that there is a continuing grievance about differentials in drainage rates, but I call my hon. Friend's attention to Clauses 30 to 33 of the new Measure. I am not quite certain where the Bill is at the moment, because there is no copy of the Act available. I do not know whether their Lordships have finished with it and whether we shall now get a copy of the Act.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate either the Bill or the Act tonight.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I entirely accept that, Mr. Speaker. My point merely is that it is very difficult for hon. Members to know the state of the law if there is not yet a printed copy of the Act in the Vote Office. The Measure contains appeal machinery which will enable all the grievances to which my hon. Friend referred to be aired.

7.14 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) has raised an interesting point tnoight. The hon. Gentleman's reputation has certainly been enhanced by his raising this subject and his fear that because he detained the House his reputation would suffer is groundless. I thank him for telling me that he does not expect me to have readily available all the answers on how the problem can be solved.
I know of the problem of drainage rates. When an area moves from being an


agricultural one to being a mixed one or, in some cases, to becoming completely urban this changes the situation entirely from that which obtained when the area was first drained. I was interested to hear the history of the hon. Gentleman's area, but I assure him and the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge Bourke) that theirs are not the only areas which are thus affected. There are many other areas. The Ministry's mailbag on this subject indicates not only the size of the problem but where the difficulties arise.
The hon. Member for Ormskirk said that he had pressed Governments for a long time but little action had been taken. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Isle of Ely for saying that action has been taken all along the line—not so much on the point raised by the hon. Member for Ormskirk, although the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which is now going through another place, contains a provision which will alleviate the problem raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Sir D. Glover: I do not want to be misquoted. I did not say that I had approached the Government and that little action had been taken. After all, I got £1 million. I said that my predecessors had made those approaches.

Mr. Mackie: I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman will realise that the cost of land drainage works carried out by river authorities is met by the general ratepayer through the river authority's precept on local authorities. Special areas with drainage boards are rated additionally to pay for special conditions.
The hon. Member for Isle of Ely said that Mr. Christopher Soames when he was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had alleviated the position by giving local authorities permissive powers but that they were not being sufficiently used. I believe that some authorities are now taking advantage of those powers and seeking to alleviate the position. I am not sure whether this is enough, and I will certainly study that question, but this is the duty of local authorities and they have the powers.
I take the point made about a local councillor, who, like us, may be seeking

re-election. But he could say "these people down in the hollow below the 8 ft. mark are being hard done by and we must spread the load". The way to make it more equitable is for councils to use the permissive powers that they have.
I agree that the issue is very complicated, but many people understand the drainage situation, particularly people coming from agricultural and flood areas. The Ministry's postbag suggests that many Members take an interest in this matter. I will consider having a conference, as has been suggested, to review this problem and see if we can do something to alleviate a problem which has caused a lot of ill-feeling in some areas.
I was amused that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely was loth to give the Government some credit. I thank him for mentioning the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, although he gave the strong impression that he was loth to give any credit. On Third Reading of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill my hon. Friend dealt with the point he made. It would be worth reading the OFFICIAL REPORT again to see what the new Measure does on this vexed question.
I agreed that there must be problems of people falling on either side of a drainage board area line. Where there is any local government or local drainage board there must be a line between the two. It is then inevitable that there are differences. In any agricultural legislation—for instance, hill farming—lines have to be drawn and these create anomalies.
I do not think I need say anything more except to thank the hon. Member for raising this matter, and to promise that I will look into the problem and write to him. He will appreciate that to do anything further would require legislation, and I understand that that is not allowed to be suggested in an Adjournment debate. We will certainly look at this problem again.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Seven o'clock.